This is big news—it means developers now have more control over Google Fonts web font loading behavior. We can enforce instant rendering of fallback text (when using font-display: swap) rather than relying on the browser default behavior of invisible text for up to 3 seconds while the web font request is in-flight.
Zach Leatherman breaks down the basics of Google Fonts recent support for font-display. There are still some drawbacks, but it’s a definite improvment.