brent A mostly Snap-based distro took some getting my head around, even if they invented the Snap. I looked for documentation justifiying this approach but could find none.
I think that it is important to keep in mind that Canonical is an enterprise-level business, providing Linux solutions across the landscape from cloud to servers to desktop to IOT devices. Ubuntu is a part of the Canonical ecosystem, but not a stand-alone part or even the most important part. Ubuntu is a major product within the Canonical ecosystem, but is designed and intended to work across Canonical product lines and the market segments Canonical serves.
Spend an hour on the Ubuntu website, clicking on each of the major divisions (Enterprise, Development, Community) of that website and poking into the products listed in the divisions, and you will get a glimpse of the scope and range of Ubuntu. Most of us think of Ubuntu as a distro, because that is how we use Ubuntu, but in doing so we are looking at a very small part of what Ubuntu is in reality.
Snaps are a component of the Canonical ecosystem, designed to work with Ubuntu but also with other Canonical products. The genesis of Snaps had little or nothing to do with the desktop or even Ubuntu itself, as a 2019 interview with Martin Wimpress suggests. In the years since 2019, Snaps have developed significantly, but generally in line with the directions hinted at by the interview. The bottom line is that the Snap architecture is intended to be cross-platform within the Linux ecosystem, and Ubuntu's increasing movement towards Snaps is part of a larger picture.
With respect to the Ubuntu desktop, I think that it is relevant that Ubuntu has the lion's share of the Linux desktop market -- roughly 40% of all installs, as I remember. Many/most of those installs are business/corporate/education installs rather than "ordinary home desktop user" installs, but Canonical has an interest in making Ubuntu both secure and relatively easy to adopt and use, as well as keeping maintenance costs (time and money, both) to a minimum. Canonical is moving toward Snaps, in part, because Snaps facilitate Canonical's objectives. My view, anyway.
