You are probably right, although a low number of rules will also affect them as their acceptable ads program is based on the fact that they block everything else. I still wonder if they can continue to offer that program with 30,000 rules only. My idea that they target ABP came from their arbitrary 30,000 rules limit.

As I have written elsewhere I consider ABP and AdBlock as "infiltrated" by Google, so they definitely want to see the rigorous blockers disappear first. Should have made that clearer in the comment.