For years, many Ubuntu users have felt that traditional .deb packages were being gradually sidelined in favor of the Snap ecosystem.
It started quietly. Double-clicking a downloaded .deb file would open it in Archive Manager instead of the installer. Then came controversial changes. Apps like Chromium, Thunderbolt and Firefox began defaulting to Snap packages, even when users tried installing them via the apt command in the terminal.
It continued further as Ubuntu introduced its new Snap Store. In Ubuntu 24.04, it ignored .deb packages completely. Double-clicking a .deb file would open the App Center, but wouldn’t actually install the package and just hang there. That behavior was later reverted after I highlighted it through It’s FOSS.
Except for when sandboxing is better, like for server-type things that need to “just work” and won’t directly interface with anything else on the system.
Like, a WiFi mesh network controller has no need to access anything on the system at all and users will only interact with it by a web portal. Docker (or an alternative) is perfect for that.