The introduction of a "minimal install" mode in the Ubuntu installer has been one of the distro's best-received features in years. When selected during
TL;DR for those who didn't read the article- it's going to basically offer users choices of programs to have pre-installed where they can basically customize their installation experience... but it's all going to be predicated on their useless snap store. In other words, as usual the best way to experience Ubuntu is via some third-party variant.
Realistically, if I'm using a minimal install, I probably want Debian for the stability anyways. It's still too bad though, always nice to have options.
Agree it sounds like a push for users to use snap more, but at the same time the "plan" doesn't sound bad in it's entirety - depending on how they design the installer experience. I could think of preselected profiles (like office, graphics, ...) that install an (adjustable) set of applications upon install. They could be downloaded on-demand while installing the system.