For a typical Ubuntu desktop user this is such a PITA. A small app like Spotify client takes around 15 seconds to start up on my beefed up workstation. Canonical pretends this issue doesn't exist but I've had enough and I'm switching to Fedora.
> They are openly hostile towards their own users.
Yes, and it's deeply ingrained in their culture so unlikely (IMHO) to change. My eyes first opened to this in April of 2011 when I was (horribly) surprised by Gnome being removed in favor of Unity, when I saw how they treated their users and community on forums and such. It was the same condescending attitude we see today where the user are complete idiots who want to do things the "wrong" way and the canonical employees (especially the "community managers") know the "right" way to do everything.
This is basically my feeling with PopOS as well. I bought a System76 laptop and decided to stick with PopOS (which came pre-installed) to try it out instead debian (which I usually run), but it's felt very much like a "our way or the highway experience". I'm moving off it and back to debian once I have the chance.
They are openly hostile towards their own users.