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Any operations that rely on server-side compute/data must margin for nondeterminism. I would put in a loading indicator just to cover the outliers.

Local (client-side) operations are a different matter entirely. Either precompute the result for common operations or optimize for speed!

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Unless the device is physically out of space for storing things, there is no excuse for putting up a modal loading indicator because of a server-only problem.

As a general rule, every single edit should be able to return control to the user immediately. If the network can’t be reached, save locally and attempt an update in the background (showing a small, unobtrusive annotation that an update is pending, as opposed to a screen-erasing obnoxious progress popover). And definitely don’t erase everything the user did if the network ends up being unreachable.

What about if two users are editing the same object? How do you reconcile or merge the changes?

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