I agree with what you said about Ubuntu NIH syndrome.
If their alternatives were better, or at least equivalent, it would not be so bad. But these NIH projects typically only have Canonical (and some Ubuntu) people working on them.
Go to Launchpad bugs and look through open and closed tickets. The NIH projects often cause Ubuntu user problems, and they just lay there and no one fixes them. If Debian, Red Hat, fd.o etc. had other distros depending on things, there would be a lot of people around to fix problems. When Ubuntu does it's own version, they are usually the people who have to fix problems.
If their alternatives were better, or at least equivalent, it would not be so bad. But these NIH projects typically only have Canonical (and some Ubuntu) people working on them.
Go to Launchpad bugs and look through open and closed tickets. The NIH projects often cause Ubuntu user problems, and they just lay there and no one fixes them. If Debian, Red Hat, fd.o etc. had other distros depending on things, there would be a lot of people around to fix problems. When Ubuntu does it's own version, they are usually the people who have to fix problems.