The big reason to avoid shipping a white page with JS turned off is performance. It implies that at some point, the JS will load and you can stop using ng-cloak

The big reason to avoid shipping a white page with JS turned off is performance. It implies that at some point, the JS will load and you can stop using ng-cloak or whatever else is hiding in the blank space. It's better to pre-load actual content, or if you don't have that, fake content, then to show nothing at all. Similarly, it's better to pay attention to back buttons so your users can navigate a website using built-in controls. This is especially important on phones, where it's easy to click a wrong link, and where back is literally a button. Can you do this with JS? Yes. Is it obvious? Not always. The same was true with our use of CSS over images, or web fonts over flash. Eventually the industry will move in the right direction, it just takes time and the occasional rant or two. ;-)