The scary thing to me is how Apple makes you jump through hoops to install or use any sort of app, but when it comes to adding items to your login items, they don't even require you to grant permission.
Tried some little throwaway app and realized you don't need it? Sucks for you. It added itself to your login items and it'll start up in the background every single time you turn on your computer. And it won't even tell you. Thought you deleted the app from your Applications folder? If you didn't check your login items, there's probably some little script that deeply installed itself and it'll reinstall it in the background during your next startup.
Adobe is the fucking worst with this. Their Creative Cloud spyware keeps enabling itself and reinstalling itself so long as you use photoshop. And it'll constantly find ways to turn itself back on. Steam also adds itself to login items, which is fucking annoying because you'll reboot and be hit in the face with game ads. At least it respects your decision when you turn it off, but login items should be opt in, never opt out.
I get notifications that an item has added itself to your login items.
I try to always install with Homebrew. Because then you can uninstall with the --zap option, for example:
Usually it blows away everything associated with the app, including cached files, configuration in ~/Library and ~/.config, etc. Very useful. It'll leave a non-functional login item which isn't active and can't be active.