That’s not really what ESM updates are. There are the main and universe archives. The former are the core packages most Ubuntu installs are likely to want, while the latter are the many third-party packages Ubuntu offers easy access to. ESM is Canonical backporting security updates for those third-party packages to be compatible with the versions in each release’s universe archive, for 10 years - long after those third party devs have stopped supporting that Ubuntu release.
So ESM matters if you are sticking with an ageing distro for compatibility reasons, but not if you’re a normal user who will upgrade to the next LTS release on schedule, or if you’re accessing more recent versions of those packages via other methods.
In addition, ESM is free for personal use on up to 5 devices.
That’s not really what ESM updates are. There are the
mainanduniversearchives. The former are the core packages most Ubuntu installs are likely to want, while the latter are the many third-party packages Ubuntu offers easy access to. ESM is Canonical backporting security updates for those third-party packages to be compatible with the versions in each release’suniversearchive, for 10 years - long after those third party devs have stopped supporting that Ubuntu release.So ESM matters if you are sticking with an ageing distro for compatibility reasons, but not if you’re a normal user who will upgrade to the next LTS release on schedule, or if you’re accessing more recent versions of those packages via other methods.
In addition, ESM is free for personal use on up to 5 devices.
Why would it say that additional security updates are locked behind ESM even when I’m on a maintained version?