There are various reasons why people would want to get rid of recommendations.

The big thing for me is that I use my tablet with children and some of the recommendations aren't exactly appropriate for them. A good example is Fifty Shades of Grey, which doesn't sound child friendly. I'm not even certain why that one pops up. The only books I grabbed from Kobo are The Hunger Games Trilogy and Anne of Green Gables/Avonlea, and my browsing habits are along similar lines. Someone else mentioned a similar issue.

Another thing is that some people, myself included, are adverse to advertising. We are so often bomboarded by advertising that it is nice to get away from it from time to time. Or we don't want advertisers manipulating our buying habits. Even though it isn't a huge issue with book recommendations, sometimes advertising is offensive.

Oh, and sometimes it is just ugly. Seriously. I've seen a couple of titles from indies (at least I hope they were indies!) with covers that were so poorly designed that I felt like vomitting. I know that you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, but sometimes it's nice to be surrounded by stuff that looks nice.

Now I'm not suggesting that Kobo should remove this feature because some people love it. I even understand why they love it, but it simply isn't the sort of thing that everyone appreciates. So it would be nice if Kobo let people who want to turn it off actually do so.