Yep, it is the most likely the compromise to retrofit this into macOS, without breaking everything in UNIX and NeXTSTEP land that has been ported into macOS.
On Windows land you have something similar, there is the WinRT sandbox, Win32 app sandbox, secure kernel, driver guard, and a miriad of other stuff, but there are also the cracks of backwards compatibility, specially if you want a single executable able to run across all those configurations.
Mobile OSes have it easier, because of no backwards compatibility and the restrictions that are able to impose as execution model.
On Windows land you have something similar, there is the WinRT sandbox, Win32 app sandbox, secure kernel, driver guard, and a miriad of other stuff, but there are also the cracks of backwards compatibility, specially if you want a single executable able to run across all those configurations.
Mobile OSes have it easier, because of no backwards compatibility and the restrictions that are able to impose as execution model.