I get why there are people that don’t like how some installers do this, but this trope is really turning into the “but I don’t even own a TV” of OSS commentary.
Just use the Docker image if you don’t like it. Or get their appliance which actually supports ongoing development.
Frankly, being anything other than super paranoid is almost a little reckless.
Also, shit-talking Home Assistant is a pretty weird take. I wouldn't write it in Python configured half in YAML and half in SQLite either, but ... not having to write it myself was the fun part.
"Oh, that path is actually not a temp directory and requires permissions different than the user account?" - sudo
"Oh your firewall blocks my outgoing telemetry data?" - sudo
"Oh your firewall blocks my localhost request but I don't actually realize that's what happens but when I try it with sudo it just works everywhere?" - sudo
There are myriad reasons apps want root access, and almost none of them are good reasons, but that doesn't mean it's not simpler for them to get sudo from a user than it is to get dev eyes addressing (let alone understanding) the nuance.