I've used Debian, but the installs feel so barebones. I love that Ubuntu has many of the common packages I need, yet it doesn't feel bloated.
Additionally, most software that supports Linux has instructions for Ubuntu, or Ubuntu just feels better supported.
Personally I've been using Arch for a long time. I prefer it in basically every way, except the pacman interface is hot garbage compared to apt. I wouldn't recommend Arch for everyone, and I don't recommend the base Arch distro for anyone. Get one of the nicer arch variants like Garuda or Cinnamon.
FlatPak instead of Snap. No telemetry or DRM.
IMO you get to “stay with Ubuntu” but are also isolated from Canonical’s increasingly strange decisions.
Then install the packages you want? If it's not in Debian repos then yeah that's compelling, but otherwise you're describing one extra apt-get command (per OS install) that you stick in your notes and reuse every few years.
I personally use OpenSUSE and Manjaro as my daily drivers after switching from Ubuntu 3 years ago, and have yet to encounter any package problems that directly stemmed from not using Ubuntu. For everything else, there's always Flatpak.
These are hypothetical scenarios and irrelevant to the context of this thread, which is about asking for Ubuntu alternatives now. The alternative doesn't have to be 100% community driven or completely detached from Ubuntu. It just needs to be usable without the nonsense of Ubuntu Pro or Snap.