I think it’s also pushing subscription based cloud services. To me, the SD card slot is a convenient backup target when away from home. It fits my 3-2-1 backup strategy. Without it, more people will consider backing up to paid cloud services, like how Apple does it.

For the record, I hate this trend. Hands off my sd slot and my 3.5mm jack. But I also want GrapheneOS or something similar. Can’t have it all…

Bump for an update. What did you ultimately do?

I’m looking for a similar solution

I do something similar but my live USB is just bootable Clonezilla. I’d like to hear more about why you use a live Ubuntu ssd.