Without commenting on Google[1], I think this sort of thing is true in the short term but less true in the long term. I expect that, were Chrome to ban ad blockers, technical folks will start to teach non-technical folks in their orbit how to e.g. install Firefox to regain ad-blocking capability. I think it would take some number of years but there would be a pushback in the medium- to long-term.
This is ironically how Chrome got its big push into the mainstream. Would be great if that’s how it got pushed out. But the world of influential techies, especially amongst the younger, seems to have gotten smaller. Perhaps I’m wrong
They'd massively alienate a large and motivated subset userbase with the ability to build viable alternatives to Google products or at least build more active means to cirvumvent their platform restrictions.
I am consistently blown away when I inadvertently experience the Internet without ad-blocking. It’s absolute garbage.
I am sad that people are either OK with this or don’t care. For many they don’t know any better, and asking many of those same groups to install and manage plugins is a fraught request.
32.8% of global users use an ad blocker. (33% of Americans.) [1]
Chrome's market share is about 65% [2]. If their recent manifest changes eventually break ad blocking (which seems to be the goal), it'll lose a bunch of market share (I guess they're optimizing for short-term profit).
They learned from Microsoft's mistake and most browsers run off the Chromium while they have Firefox by the balls with their default search engine deal. Not to mention Firefox is hellbent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I don't know what you mean. They are already blocking adblock users on YouTube and there is certainly no exodus happening there. A few people complain about it and get a handful of upvotes on social media from their friends, but it hasn't even come close to rising to "backlash" status.
I suspect that such a move would draw significant scrutiny from regulators, potentially far outweighing any impacts from users switching browsers on their own.
Google knows what will likely happen, and pays people lots of money to know.