If you are not logged in to YouTube you get generic crappy recommendations, why not this for someone without history turned on?
I use the YouTube recommender extensively and understand the issues about getting increasing crap in recs. I really have no interest in fake science crap or conspiracy theory crap! So I aggressively "do not like" videos or channels that turn up with this junk. I'm not sure I could use YouTube without the recommender and would not use it if I got constant crap. The "do not like" tells the recommender not to send that particular type of crap and though more crap will inevitably drift in, the result is a pretty useful feature.
That's pretty much what's been happening for the last decade. I turned off search history an age ago and I've had a slightly tailored (based on subscriptions) but mostly generic home page since them.
It's not a cas where they can't. They decide on this course of action.
On a related note, they already show an (almost) totally generic feed for Shorts. If you turn search history off, you see a lot of Andrew Tate, anti-trans, and "masculinity is under attack" messaging. It's disgusting to think that's what Google are showing to new sign users.
I use the YouTube recommender extensively and understand the issues about getting increasing crap in recs. I really have no interest in fake science crap or conspiracy theory crap! So I aggressively "do not like" videos or channels that turn up with this junk. I'm not sure I could use YouTube without the recommender and would not use it if I got constant crap. The "do not like" tells the recommender not to send that particular type of crap and though more crap will inevitably drift in, the result is a pretty useful feature.