Ubuntu can handle RPM packages if they are converted into DEB packages.
Here's how:
@itsfoss #ubuntu these days turned into #ransomware . they keep package updates away from you, until you pay with personal data or money for their subscription programm. i stopped using it since.
@Axel1973 @itsfoss That is not what happened. The same updates you've been getting for over a decade, you're still getting now.
Ubuntu has multiple "tiers" of support for packages, and (to my knowledge) has for many years. There's "open-source, supported by Canonical" (main), "closed-source, supported by Canonical" (restricted), "open-source, supported by the Ubuntu dev community" (universe), and "closed-source, supported by the Ubuntu dev community" (multiverse). Only packages in main and restricted get guaranteed security updates, and only packages that ship on an official Ubuntu image (or possibly ones that are of particularly extreme importance like a web server) are in main and restricted. Everything else is in universe and multiverse, including critical applications like vlc. This has always been the way - Canonical doesn't ship vlc on any official image, so it's up to the community to patch it if need be.
The thing is that the community usually has their hands full with way too many other things, so things don't get patched, or if they do, it takes a million years for someone to step in and patch it. There are quite a few packages that aren't quite important enough to make into a main packages, that nonetheless are fairly important to many (vlc, ImageMagick to name a couple) and these packages were going unpatched.
So, Canonical decided to do something about that, and thus was Ubuntu Pro born. The idea is, all of those packages that used to just be left in a vulnerable state for months, now get updates similar to packages in main. The catch is that this is a monumental number of packages to patch, requiring a massive amount of effort and time to do. Time = money, so Canonical has to get paid for this somehow. Their solution was to offer the extra updates **for free** to every individual and to businesses with five or less desktops that need support (and yes, commercial use of the free tier of Ubuntu Pro by businesses is permitted by the terms of service). Only businesses with servers or six or more desktop machines have to pay, and they get to pay prices that are fairly competitive with the other big enterprise Linux out there, RHEL.
If you don't want to go through the hassle of setting up Ubuntu Pro, or don't want to plug in (an IMO non-invasive amount of) personal data, you can just use ye-old Ubuntu and you will get the same updates today that you used to get before. There's just more updates yet still that you can get if you feel you would be benefited by them.
As for why they're placed in your face so much, um, they're security updates. If you're an individual using Ubuntu and you don't know what you're doing, you probably really should enable those, and it's free so there's not a whole lot of reasons to not do it. If you do know what you're doing, you can just skip them. It is pushy, and it is something that there are people pushing back against so that the presentation isn't so pushy, but it has a legitimate reason behind it. But again, they are optional, and if you just want the same Ubuntu updates you always used to get, you're still getting those without Ubuntu Pro.
(Final nitpick - I'm pretty sure ransomware is software that encrypts your personal data and then forces you to pay a fee to decrypt it. A paywall is not the same as ransomware, especially when that paywall doesn't even apply unless you happen to be a bit-bigger-than-small-sized business.)