Other than driving a mass exodus to Firefox, I don’t see this having any real impact. Unless you own the whole software stack adblock is a game of cat and mouse.
Let’s say worst case scenario google embeds ads into the video itself, and refuses to stream the actual video packets until the length of the ad has elapsed. The repetitive nature of advertising makes if trivial to detect when the served video is an ad and when it’s content. You might be able to make me wait for a video file, but you can’t make me watch an ad. My Firefox extension is gonna replace those advertising frames with a black loading screen and there’s nothing google can do to stop that.
They don't mind the cat and mouse games, as long as they capture some people. Whether this is through showing ads or getting them to subscribe.
I believe this has been successful for Twitch, growing revenue despite decrease in concurrent viewers. So the real impact seems obvious to me, even if I would personally avoid it.
Let’s say worst case scenario google embeds ads into the video itself, and refuses to stream the actual video packets until the length of the ad has elapsed. The repetitive nature of advertising makes if trivial to detect when the served video is an ad and when it’s content. You might be able to make me wait for a video file, but you can’t make me watch an ad. My Firefox extension is gonna replace those advertising frames with a black loading screen and there’s nothing google can do to stop that.