Writing a modern function interface to "produce a populated container"

When I cut my teeth on C++03, I saw several popular approaches to writing a function that produces a populated container (A "give me the collection of things" function):

template< typename Container >
void make_collection( std::insert_iterator<Container> );

• This must be implemented in a header file


• The interface doesn't communicate that an empty container is expected.

or:

void make_collection( std::vector<Thing> & );

• This is not container agnostic


• The interface doesn't communicate that an empty container is expected.

or:

std::vector<Thing> make_collection();

• This is not container agnostic


• There are several avenues for unnecessary copying.

Using modern C++ standards, is there a more idiomatic function interface to "produce a populated container"?