Ubuntu just works. Its been my daily driver for nearly 20 years. I've had trouble from time to time but in the last ten years or so they have been fewer and fewer. I started with slackware and have many distros. Ubuntu is getting the job done. None of the other distros out there today bring more. I admit snaps are annoying but I slowly replace them on a new install.
But you're also promoting Ubuntu's continued use, when Snaps are just one example of Canonical being antithetical to free software values. Mint is all the benefits of Ubuntu without that garbage, so why not that?
Yeah, what is your point? Ubuntu is literally a modified version of Debian. Of course Debian wasn't created from any other distro. First time I tried it was in 96. The point I'm making is that there is a certain effete push away from the established status quo but there isn't any real need for it.
when Snaps are just one example of Canonical being antithetical to free software values
No they are not. They are just another way of packaging apps that is specific to Ubuntu (and distros that can run Snap). The format has its flaws but calling it antithetical makes no sense.
Also, I like Snaps. Ubuntu comes with Snap pre-installed. So I won't be using Mint.
Is the Snap backend available and open-source? If not, then it's antithetical to software freedom because Canonical is trying to close their users into a walled garden in the ways that Apple and Google are with their app stores.
There are plenty of software packaging systems that work just as well or better than Snap, and promote software freedom (Flatpak, Appimage, or even just traditional package managers). By using and promoting Snap over these, you are working against the growth of digital rights.
Snap works great for a lot of CLI software. All of the FOSS Snaps also publish their source code of how they are packaged. https://github.com/nextcloud-snap/nextcloud-snap , and the snap client app is FOSS too.
I don't care that the server is controlled by Canonical. Most Flatpaks are on Flathub and it's not a problem.