I wouldn't say this is going back to the old way of doing things. Snaps can still go through the software center. There isn't the same need to reconcile dependencies, so the primary use of the repository is not to cultivate a garden of packages that all play nicely together, but to provide a single trusted source for downloadable content (i.e. to be a gate-keeper). That's my understanding of how the play store works: packages are sandboxed and statically linked because Google had no interest in dealing with dependency hell. That may not have been the "right" approach, but it was nimble as hell.
Personally, I would want to keep my core system up to date using the traditional methods, but I see no reason why peripheral apps shouldn't be kept in a sandbox and statically linked, especially when it becomes a massive chore for a distribution community to keep all those packages up to date and playing nicely with one another. I can think of a few examples of apps that aren't in the Ubuntu repository (like my Unifi controller), and a few others that are woefully out of date (like NetBeans) that could hypothetically benefit from being packaged as a snap.
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I wouldn't say this is going back to the old way of doing things. Snaps can still go through the software center. There isn't the same need to reconcile dependencies, so the primary use of the repository is not to cultivate a garden of packages that all play nicely together, but to provide a single trusted source for downloadable content (i.e. to be a gate-keeper). That's my understanding of how the play store works: packages are sandboxed and statically linked because Google had no interest in dealing with dependency hell. That may not have been the "right" approach, but it was nimble as hell. Personally, I would want to keep my core system up to date using the traditional methods, but I see no reason why peripheral apps shouldn't be kept in a sandbox and statically linked, especially when it becomes a massive chore for a distribution community to keep all those packages up to date and playing nicely with one another. I can think of a few examples of apps that aren't in the Ubuntu repository (like my Unifi controller), and a few others that are woefully out of date (like NetBeans) that could hypothetically benefit from being packaged as a snap.