Sure.
Admittedly, there is an unsolved problem with reliably and repeatedly packaging and updating software in the Linux world. Snap, developed by Canonical, who makes Ubuntu, is one attempt at solving this problem.
From my understanding, Snap bundles all of an application's dependencies separately from the host system, and runs the application in a sandboxed environment. Updates to the application are handled automatically and executed by a daemon (background process) that runs a few times a day.
There are reasons for all of Snap's design decisions, and I'm sure they're useful in the right context. However, Canonical is all-in on Snaps these days to the point that many regular apt-get package installs on Ubuntu force you to install the Snap version of applications with no real supported way to avoid it.
In my original comment, I'm suggesting that the inflated size of Ubuntu installs could be partly driven by so much of the default software being Snaps now (which bundle all dependencies and therefore you inevitably end up with duplicated stuff on the machine).
I've found Snaps to be inconvenient on my personal Ubuntu devices, and dislike the way Canonical doesn't give you a choice not to use them, so I've moved on to different distros for my own use.
