I didn't have any strong opinions on the matter, but I do agree that it can be jarring, even upsetting, to be greeted with emptiness, especially if loading takes a while; especially for the least techs literate among us whom might miss the fact that this is a temporary loading state, and may worry that they "lost their fluxer".
I think any of those mockups look good, i like the idea of having a similar identity between mobile and desktop so i would say 5 is my favourite.
One thing though is, I never noticed this skeleton myelf as the app does indeed load lightning-fast!
A neat idea could then be to have the desktop client save loading times internally and choose behaviour according to last known load speed? Like sub 1s keep the current behaviour else display the loading? I feel like doing this on desktop as opposed to mobile would mean you generally have the same connexion and specs, so similar loading times, but it might create some inconsistencies on laptops that use a lot of different wifis? Not sure.
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Comment by @vkyfox