Given their actions the last two years or so unfortunately the default assumption is (reasonably) “probably something intentional to get people to stop doing something they don’t want, like using ad blockers.”
Except it's still a problem with hardware acceleration disabled.
Very well could be. But with companies like Google I immediately start from a place of light-cynicism until I see evidence to the contrary at this point. I haven't given them the benefit of the doubt in probably a decade, and generally it's a fair way to go about things.
Well, in my case the browser is Google as well, so...