Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to defend the ad industry, but I don't think these are equivalent. YouTube ads don't block content so much as they delay it, much like inline ads. The equivalent YouTube ad would be if it started playing and didn't pause the video you're trying to watch.
Here is something that is equivalent, page level ads, which are identical to what Google calls interstitials - https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6245304?hl=en How will Google punish themselves? Or will Google just punish the publishers who bothered to follow their repeated recommendations to run page level ads on their site?
Meaning it won't show when coming from a Google search, until the user navigates to a second page of the same site.
I guess it's okay to irritate users if it's at least one step away from search?