The sad truth is that it takes a while for the open source drivers to solidify after any new release and going open source means not getting the newest hardware.
Well, Intel actually seems to get their open source driver support in far enough ahead of time these days that you can just load the newest Ubuntu with them and it works, but that wasn't the case 5 years ago.
AMD's almost there, you can just install 18.10 and Steam and go gaming with nothing else to install. 18.04 not so much, but once distros start shipping with newer kernels/mesa then it should sort itself out.
Most people don't care about having the newest hardware. The only cases that come to my mind are hardcore pc gamers, people who edit video, and people doing deep learning.
Maybe this is true for desktop PCs, but in my case I always had to be very careful when buying a new laptop/notebook (which basically always had the newest HW because it just came with it).
true. and still, intel drivers are a landmine. even the latest ones shipped today generates FIFO warnings because of the bad code. Not to mention itel "graphic cards" are a glorified floating point co-coprocessor and the "drivers" just rename mesa-software with intelgfx or something :) man, everything about intel lately feels like a joke you remove the marketing lacquer... it's almost if they are the IBM of old.
anyway, but AMD have actual graphics cards, and the driver quality they open source is usually very good.
Well, Intel actually seems to get their open source driver support in far enough ahead of time these days that you can just load the newest Ubuntu with them and it works, but that wasn't the case 5 years ago.