This is why I browse incognito, clear my cookies, use a VPN, and don't participate in the phenomenon of recommended content. I don't want some algorithm telling me what I should want.
It's funny that once I became a software developer (frontend specifically), things like dark patterns and other UI features that try to keep users on the app is very interesting to me. I will never put something like that in my own code but it's still interesting to pick up dark patterns out of every day apps we use (Instagrams "slot machine of dopamine" is one that comes to mind)
I've been experiencing this for years and it's worse to a critical point with the notion of recentness gone.
This isn't an either/or situation.
I get trying to be private and disclosing as little information to Google as possible. However, I've found YouTube unearths interesting content pretty well if you create an account and let it track your preferences a little bit. Especially don't turn off the viewing history, otherwise you'll get the same recommendations over and over and YouTube is kind of useless.