My Mac sometimes prompts me to see if a Mac application should have access to certain directories, such as “Downloads,” so I’m not sure that’s entirely true anymore?

But in any case I think this is missing a distinction between what software developers can install in “developer mode” versus stuff that’s in the store for non-technical people to use. Apps in app stores see widespread use by people who barely know what a computer is, so I think there should be hoops you need to jump through to get distribution to the masses, at least for certain types of apps.

And those apps aren’t useless, they do important but security-sensitive things like banking, things us developers need to do too sometimes.

It’s a different world than hacking around on your Raspberry Pi or an old phone, and I think it should be different. Treating these situations the same muddies the issues.