edit: Apparently, Signal does this for some things? See comment-replies.
Older Android versions only had the idea of the app declaring "I need to be able to use your Camera, read your Contacts, and make $$$ phone calls" and then you pick "No" and don't get the app or you pick "OK". This more or less railroads users into pressing "OK", except for the most security conscious, who go without the app.
A few releases back Google had an unofficial feature that let you switch off features an app had, and it would get some dummy replacement, e.g. if it had Contacts access but you switched that off, it would see no Contacts at all. If it had Camera access, but that was switched off, it would always be told your Camera was busy in another app. Once word about this hidden feature got out, Google disabled it.
Recent releases (Certainly on my Nexus 5X for example which is a while back) enable an app to ask at runtime. If you said "No" the app gets a second chance to explain itself, and then if you keep saying "No" the feature is just disabled and Android stops prompting you. The app might not work after that of course. Like the disabled older feature, the Settings pages for apps let you undo previous authorizations, again this may make certain apps malfunction - a map app with no GPS is merely crippled, but a "barcode scanner" with no Camera access is junk.
However of course apps for an older phone don't prompt, the older Android can't handle it, so for them you still have to make the decision at install time.
https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/deve...
@mrguyorama - this means you can force the old landgrab user-hostile permissions to people running old Android versions, but you cannot force them onto users running Android 8.
1: https://developer.android.com/training/permissions/requestin...