[microtonal]

Ways macOS handles the this problem: 1. the File Open dialog is itself the permission prompt.

And yet, there are quite some applications that ask you to open the home directory once so that it gets symlinked into their sandbox. It's basically a hack to say 'I need access to your whole home directory'. Of course, it is safer than permitting access by default.

Of course, in many cases there are good reasons (backup software, space usage analyzers). But not everything can be mediated through file dialogs.