I’ve been using it since 2007 - 7.04 was my first foray into Linux ever. At present day it’s been the most “it just works” distro for me. I installed it and… that’s it. Everything just worked.
I don’t care about the “ads” in the terminal. I don’t care that it’s “bloated” (even the most bloated distro is less bloated than Windows).
If a company is porting their software to Linux, chances are they’re focusing on Ubuntu. Not Debian. Not Mint. Ubuntu.
If something isn’t working, chances are there’s a community post about it with a working solution.
It’s cool that distro hopping is a hobby for a lot of people. It isn’t for me. I want no bullshit, just set it up and let it work so I can focus on doing stuff within the OS, not setting up and fine tuning the OS itself day in and day out. And for me that’s Ubuntu.
Started with Mandrake a long time ago and when it went away turned to Ubuntu and have stuck with it ever since. Surprised no one mentioned LTS (long time support) which I think is 5 years. This means for servers you don't have to worry about frequent upgrades (think fedora) and for desktops my setup stays stable for a good while.
I try other disros in VMs just to try sexier stuff but for production stick to Ubuntu.