I use the word "meme" very lightly here, which is a mixture of hate, second-hand embarrassment, making fun of the distro and its users and so on. For the issues it had in the past and being no longer trustworthy for many. Also people meme about Ubuntu for the Snaps, and the focus on Rust (I personally like Rust...), being best friend with Microsoft and so on.

I wouldn't take that statement too seriously, some people really like to gatekeep. The simple fact is that Ubuntu has done a lot to make Linux more accessible to a lot of people who otherwise would still be using another OS. That also makes it an easy target for ridicule.

Having said that, they also made a lot of unpopular decisions, especially amongst Linux purists.

Ubuntu was my first Linux distro and I liked it back then. I would've recommended the old Ubuntu to non-tech-savvy people, or people who want a Linux that "just works" (although back then no Linux "just worked", there was always at least a bit of debugging for me). However it's enshittified a lot. A lot of basic software is only available as snaps. It generally feels quite corporate these days.