Comment by biker142541

> It's not clear if these placeholders do actually help

Well, it depends what you mean by help. It’s very dependent on use case and desired UX. Obviously you can prevent layout shifts without them, you can provide feedback on loading status in other ways, and ensure images don’t slow load time without colored placeholders. But they can provide a pleasant UX for some use cases, when done right. They can be annoying when not done well.