when Snaps are just one example of Canonical being antithetical to free software values
No they are not. They are just another way of packaging apps that is specific to Ubuntu (and distros that can run Snap). The format has its flaws but calling it antithetical makes no sense.
Also, I like Snaps. Ubuntu comes with Snap pre-installed. So I won't be using Mint.
Snap works great for a lot of CLI software. All of the FOSS Snaps also publish their source code of how they are packaged. https://github.com/nextcloud-snap/nextcloud-snap , and the snap client app is FOSS too.
I don't care that the server is controlled by Canonical. Most Flatpaks are on Flathub and it's not a problem.