I only ever browse Youtube in an incognito window, and to watch a video I copy its URL, yt-dlp it, and play it with VLC. I do similar things with other sites likely to track me: I tend to open them in incognito windows. (Which, of course, doesn't make it impossible to track me, just harder). So they have some data on me — it's impossible to hide your every move from the Google panopticon — but a lot less than with most people.
So yes, just as with your example, it was pretty obvious when the targeting algorithm acquired new data.
So yes, just as with your example, it was pretty obvious when the targeting algorithm acquired new data.