Ubuntu didn't force people to move at all, at least any more than the normal apt-update.

Last I checked though, to install Kicad with apt you needed to manually add a PPA - it wasn't available from the distro at all.

My point precisely, for them a 'normal' update includes precluding the ongoing use of a working package and replacing it with a novel and buggy one. No idea on the current state, I've largely stopped using Ubuntu.

Our KiCad 6 was on its own PPA you would have had to add manually. Same for KiCad 7 which has its own PPA. None of this is automated.

Ubuntu/Canoical itself may have pulled a kicad package update from Debian. But we have no say over that process in Ubuntu.