Yep. Ubuntu lost by several orders of magnitude. They lost me with Unity, which seemed like something overly fancy which wasn’t required. Had they gone for stability instead of UI, they mighy have kept the users and developed a more suitable alternative to macOS.
It really feels like a list battle. I’d pay $200 a year for an OS, especially an open-source one that doesn’t send my data to Amazon.
If you don't like Ubuntu's GUI, it's baked into Windows 10 now. It's not ideal since you're missing out of the remaining good Mac apps (that aren't electron based) but it's a viable alternative now.
It really feels like a list battle. I’d pay $200 a year for an OS, especially an open-source one that doesn’t send my data to Amazon.