Which is fine. Nothingness, or a generic spinner actually don't lie to me.
Skeletons lie by making an impression that the data is just about ready. So there's this failure mode where data is NOT ready because of a slow app/network, and I end up staring at a fake. Even worse, sometimes skeletons also break scrolling, so you end up even more frustrated because your controls don't work.
Again, I don't see any upsides for me compared to a blank page. Skeletons in the best case just show a useless intermediate state, and in the worst case just force me to pay attention to a non-functional page for an indefinite amount of time.
A blank page does not try to keep grabbing my attention.
Skeletons also have a toxic effect on web developers by letting them get sloppier.
Skeletons lie by making an impression that the data is just about ready. So there's this failure mode where data is NOT ready because of a slow app/network, and I end up staring at a fake. Even worse, sometimes skeletons also break scrolling, so you end up even more frustrated because your controls don't work.