Apparently forcing updates is sort of the core of Snap's philosophy. To the point that they rather added a whole host of config options that lets you specify various "work periods", "postponements" and other temporarily exceptions than just give you the ability not to update.
Can I tell it what I consider my "home directory" is because snaps seem to limit me to what some bozo at canonical thinks is my home directory (rather the multiple volumes and symbolic links I've used for a couple of decades now)
See the discussion here: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic-refresh-for...
Edit: ...or not anymore: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33836216