Very. I think it speaks to the fear they have over losing this market and the incredibly bad reaction they'd have if they'd simply released the weakly updated Pro without further explanation.
I'm thrilled that we went to the moon, and am glad we did. Venera is just an example of a possible alternative to what we chose to do by sending humans in that era. Less science for less money.
1969 space technology was the result of a mandate to get humans on the moon. A mandate to get robots on the moon would have likely radically increased the ability of these robots to collect data as compared to what Venera accomplished.
To be clear, Venera 7 landed on Venus and transmitted data in 1970. We did have robots (probes, landers) that while crude by today's standards, did serve a scientific purpose.
I think it's both of these things plus money. If the culture has an interest in privacy, the technology exists to make privacy feasible and someone can make money from it, you have a path of least resistance (or at least a level playing field) towards more privacy.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Yep, a skeleton UI is great for filling out the canvas, but the addition of a spinner can indicate that "more stuff is coming".