I can take the point with Google on transferring already installed apps from the Play Store to a 3rd Party store. That is a real issue which warrants further scrutiny, because the vectors for potential abuse.

I think the free ride of the Play Store having back links automatically in 3rd party app stores to “fill the gaps” is also problematic for representation reasons and is actually bad for users, as origin becomes obfuscated and so does support. If you want apps as a 3rd party store you need to recruit developers to publish to it. This is a clear and transparent attempt by Epic to undercut the Play Store while simultaneously benefiting from it at the same time. It’s not a pro consumer move.

I have trouble siding with them on the claims of distribution.

Distributing 3rd party app stores via Google Play Store isn’t hard, it’s just another app, effectively. It would actually allow them to police for exploitation and malware more transparently I would think, since the store itself would have to get approved like any other app.