Debian also got a lot quicker with updates. They are not as "oldschool" as they've been a few years ago with the packages being always years behind. They still have the Debian way of thinking (tested > on the edge) but it's months and not years of waiting for new updates to be implemented in their official sources
Ubuntu’s Director of Engineering says the new hub will be a “snap-first app store” designed around snap metadata. If the same piece of software exists in the Ubuntu repository and the snap store the new store will only make it possible to install the snap version.