This is interesting. Link: Adios! Says Ubuntu to The Software and Updates Tool
it could be but I have doubt... anyway it will be possible to install it manually...
installing it takes just one command:
sudo apt install software-properties-gtk
Unfortunately, for Ubuntu I understand the logic. They want to be the Microsoft of the Linux space at this point, and that means taking away as much control from the user as possible. And while yes, you can still install the GUI application for now, it wouldn't surprise me if it slowly dissapears over time, and you're left running things manually either via terminal or other means to edit those settings
(which is surely not reminiscent of any other OS that more people are starting to avoid, no siree Bob).
That being said, it also has always driven me insane that they call it "Software and Updates" to the end user. So if you search "Update", the search would FREQUENTLY get confused between actually checking for updates, and opening that application. Why it couldn't have been named something more apt for its use, and to help avoid confusion... I've got no idea. My tinfoil hat me could say its been like that intentionally so they could say now/later that it had to be removed to remove said confusion they already made.
But the more real answer is simply no one wanted to bother most likely.
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Removing without replacing - this means that it is not about what they say it is about.
And what users will need to do, in Ubuntu 26.04 is either add it back or use the terminal instead of the GUI.
I find it ironically delicious.
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It's really frightening how more and more features that give users choices are gradually being removed from GUI which makes it more difficult to use Ubuntu based Distributions and configure custom settings.