That's an important distinction. Whenever trillion dollar tech companies say they're not going to do something hugely unpopular and selfish because of public sentiment, what they really mean is they're not going to do it right then. Instead they back off, do something like this to get everyone's attention focused elsewhere, and then they'll push the original unpopular idea anyways, but quietly.
I've never really understood the obsession with this. Yes, it's true, but 1) they've never killed anything I actually cared about 2) they can't support infinite software forever. 3) this discussion has nothing to do with anything here. They aren't going to "kill" ads, it's literally the one thing about their company that will never not be the focus.
They backed off their web drm, because it was hugely unpopular, but also because they remembered they own chromium and can just disable adblockers directly. They tried to over-engineer something that requires everyone else to adopt a new standard, when all they ever needed to do was use a sledgehammer.