Yes, we recently removed the setting to disable this splash screen.
The setting was originally added when the feature was experimental, but it’s been stable for years now. Disabling the splash screen actually can result in a worse core web vitals score (a factor in Google rankings), so it was a bit dangerous if you were disabling it and were unaware of this.
As mentioned, you can now upload a custom image using the Splash screen image site setting. When you upload a static image, the dots will still appear below it… but if you upload an animated SVG it will replace the default dots completely.
It might be worth experimenting with this and seeing if there’s a loading image that works well for your site, but if you’d still prefer the blank page you can upload a transparent animated SVG (though note this might also result in a worse core web vital score, Google may ignore transparent images)
Here’s a zip containing a transparent animated SVG, if it’s helpful blank-animated.svg.zip (1 KB)