The problem with the Ubuntu phone wasn't the lack of drivers or support from Qualcomm, the real problem was just lack of strategic foresight, I mean, common fucking sense from Canonical.

Canonical was always very bad at strategy, they tried to enter the mass market of personal computing with a product full of indecipherable error messages and an ugly UI. I’m pretty sure Microsoft, Apple and Google already proved people value simplicity and a great design on their computers. They followed the trend with useless phones that never got anywhere because people wouldn't even adopt a phone that doesn't have an App Store with their favorite apps. And no, web based shit isn't enought.

Here's a quote from their CEO (Shuttleworth):

I had dreamed of Ubuntu sort of going mainstream (…) better focus on the things [our customers] care about (…) that required some changes in the business. Those are, at an emotional level, challenging changes…

The first rule of business: the purpose of any company is to make money. It doesn’t matter your business type or products; if you’ve to change the core of your business to make more revenue you just do it without emotional attachments – if you can’t handle this do not launch a business, ever.

The problem now is Google and Apple have taken such a deep foothold on the market, it may be a bit too late

This was also a problem "then". When Ubuntu Phone launched the market was already consolidated into iOS and Android and Uber, banks, facebook and whatnot wouldn't develop alternative versions of their Apps for an half assed platform not backed by a serious player, ever.