[rgoulter]

If you want recommendations based on the content you enjoy watching, YouTube still displays recommendations beside videos (even with watch history turned off).

If you want to see a list of videos unrelated to your subscriptions, you have the options of looking at Trending videos, or videos under Gaming, Music, News, Sports.

(...And of course, if you do want recommendations on the home page, you have the option to re-enable watch history and get those).

I don't agree that "zero ability to discover new channels" is a reasonable description of the options someone has with watch history disabled.