While through my review of this forum I’ve found no evidence to show that this is a duplicate proposal, if it is then my deepest apologies for the error (and please feel free to set me straight).
Background
Many moons ago, hide-when-empty was the default (and in fact only) option by which a collection of auto-related-database (aka, related-type) entities could be seen in entity view. At some point though, that option was entirely reversed — the default option for viewing an auto-related collection in entity view instead became (and still remains) show-when-empty.
Proposal
Although the recently added option to altogether hide a collection from showing in entity view is tremendously awesome and wonderful, I respectfully propose and urge — if it wouldn’t be too much trouble — the addition of one further tweak to entity-view collection settings: the creation of a hide-when-empty option — or even better, to make hide-when-empty the default behavior and to couple it with an option to instead show-when-empty. Exactly that — via the “Show empty Field values” toggle — is the default behavior [and available alternate option] now governing the pinned fields area, and I respectfully suggest making collections conform to the same functionality.
I for one would find this exceedingly helpful, and I respectfully urge its adoption.
{I’ll also just add my belief that adopting this (what I think to be — and please correct me if I’m wrong — easily implementable) change would and will (at least to some degree) lessen the urgency of calls for a fully customizable entity-view template option. (See, e.g.: Individual Layouts for a node, hide fields etc and Reduce empty relation noise when sharing entity.) I could be wrong about this, but I feel it’s gotta help in at least some small way.}
Anyway, those are my “two cents” on this, and I thank you all for your time and consideration!