Installing Debian 11 on a seven year old laptop to test something involved Debian helpfully mentioning it was missing network drivers and couldn't continue (okay), which effectively meant searching the internet for the files mentioned on another computer (dubious). Because this laptop was being used exclusively to test something on Debian 11 (openssh-server with U2F support) I just settled for some random GitHub repo with the driver binary (the only place I could find it). Not a great user experience.

The Ubuntu way is to suggest installing non-free drivers from the same reputable source as the rest of the distro: by clicking your assent right there in the installer.