I mean we could make software that isn't malicious and didn't need the OS to prompt you if you want to allow the malice. But where would the money be in that?

I wonder how it would go if we went back to OSes with no security boundaries at all. Having an explicit boundary seems to give apps implicit permission to go right up to the boundary. But there was only one RealPlayer. Every other program didn't dare to be like RealPlayer.