alt Hacker NewsStatic list of uris versus live heuristics. So "much of a difference" depends a lot on what you browse. If your browsing is covered by the static list, yes...there's little difference.
Also, keep in mind advertisers are not unaware of all this movement. You don't think they'll try new tactics once they know everyone using chrome is now hobbled to solely static lists? That cloaking (or other approaches) won't then become really popular?
A lot of other ad blockers use static lists for years. The fact that they work tells that ad industry does not see the blockers as a problem that needs to be dealt with. It can also be that so far the increased cost of development of ads that are immune to simple static lists is not worth it.