It sure seems that way. Their "extended security maintenance" spam says that there are security updates that are only available if you "subscribe".

I asked the Linux community about this, and didn't get a straight answer (not surprised.)

It was enough for me to switch to Debian, though. There's no excuse for updates to be locked behind paywalls or sign-ups in the free software ecosystem.

And people ask me "why" when I chose LMDE over Ubuntu-based Linux Mint.

This shit is why. Canonical is huffing their own farts at this point. Don't dangle shit in front of me if it comes at a price. And yes, I know Linux Mint isn't under Canonical, but at this point I would rather not support anything Ubuntu-related.

You only get security updates for packages in main. If you want them for packages in universe, like ffmpeg, you have to use esm or upgrade to 24.10.

Anybody can get Ubuntu Pro for free on up to five devices: https://ubuntu.com/pro/subscribe

It's the difference in OS version;

• 24.04 has ffmpeg_6.1.1-3ubuntu5
• 24.10 has ffmpeg_7.0.2-3ubuntu1

So if you want ffmpeg from main, upgrade to 24.10, otherwise you can only get ffmpeg in 24.04 by waiting until its added to main, using Ubuntu Pro, or compiling from source.