I can't find any option, setting, or keyboard shortcut that disables or hides that annoying scrollbar. I just don't find it useful and it's distracting.
Can't just edit the editor's CSS like Atom, either.
Add the following to your settings.json
file
"editor.minimap.enabled": false
Note that, as pointed out in another answer, this process has now been simplified to:
View->Show Minimap
Add the following to your settings.json
file
"editor.hideCursorInOverviewRuler": true
This will keep the scrollbar, but will result in it only appearing when the cursor is within the editor, as seen in the image below:
If you would like to completely remove the scrollbars, add the following to your settings.json
file (note the editor will say "Unknown configuration setting" - ignore this. It will still work):
"editor.scrollbar.horizontal": "hidden",
"editor.scrollbar.vertical": "hidden"
This will result in the scrollbars not being visible even when the cursor is in the editor, as seen in the image below: