[explain]

They wrote a blog post about this change last week as if it was a good thing.

It's not a good thing: "you’ll be able to see the search bar and the left-hand guide menu, with no feed of recommended videos thus allowing you to more easily search, browse subscribed channels and explore Topic tabs instead."

I'm still not enabling my watch history.

[cyanydeez]

I've got an android YouTube app on my Pico projector and it's never logged in, but it definitely remembers my history and only takes a few hours of watching to dial into a narrow band of recommendations.

So, this appears to be some legal derived obeyance, nothing more.

[sockaddr]

They’re deliberately being a petty asshole about it (that part isn’t good) but the end result is actually probably better for your brain so I’m fine with the pettiness.