I think eventually there is nothing that can stop certain adds on Chrome once specific API's are removed, even using manifest 3. Maybe someone could chime in on this as its really confusing now since Google keeps pushing back the date to remove manifest 2. (This might be outdated info)
We'll create a shim to render the page in the background and use AI to remove ads and then serve the result to the user, at the least. Fuck ads and malvertising
Yes and: There will be a tipping point where it'll be easier to allow the content rather than blocking the garbage. Dynamic screen scrapping, more or less.
Yeah, it generally does feel like a "Catch me if you can" situation. I'm sure that there will be different ad-blockers once those APIs are removed, as there seems to be a very strong desire from some people not to see ads.
I hope we'll not end up in a DRM-like system where ads are somehow really baked in and content stops working for lay-people if they try to circumvent ads.