Have you ever yanked out a USB drive from your laptop to the horrified screams of “wait, you have to safely eject it!” from the IT stickler in your life? And unless you were in the middle of actively transferring files to or from the USB stick, it didn’t seem to have any discernible effect. This is because it didn’t.

Microsoft has officially added a Quick Removal option for USB devices so now you can rest assured that data loss will not occur. Of course, the "safely remove hardware" alert still exists and you can stick with it if you choose Better Performance mode.

By default

This change was ushered in last October with version 1809 of Windows 10 but most people will only be hearing about it now as Microsoft is notifying IT professionals about the update. Unofficially, this was possible as far back as Windows 7 but because USB slots were set to Better Performance by default it forced users to click on the warning and go through the motions before removing their external storage device.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4495263/windows-10-1809-change-in-default-removal-policy-for-external-media