They've been around for decades, both for thru-hole and surface-mount. When you're using automated machinery, you don't want to mess around with wire jumpers; a zero-ohm resistor can be inserted or pick-and-placed using the same automated equipment that normal resistors are placed with.
Ah, but the trick is to get the low tolerance ones. Two reasons:
A) then it’s +/- 20%, right? Which means you bucket them and resell the + ones, using the rest to mine crypto, and
B) you save money because 5% of 0 is no more than 20%.
They're rarely just jumpers, they're often fuses as well because they have a current rating. 0 Ω are sometimes uses as sacrificial fail safes when there's not a cost budget for thermal self-resetting fuses such as those used in automotive applications. And it's usually cheaper to bridge two pads with a blob of solder than maintain and source another part in the BOM.
I suppose, though, if you look up those ratings, they aren't terribly different from the max current ratings of a copper wire with roughly the same cross-section area.