“Unless I’m missing something, but what gives epic the right to host their game wherever they want and dictate the cut that storefronts charge for this service? ”
It has been rumored that Netflix and Amazon did this exact same thing, lower the cut of the product that they sell on the app stores. Epic probably thought they were big enough to do the same
“Without these storefronts they wouldn’t make any money.”
Without Google/Apple storefronts Epic would just make their own. A lot of kids like fortnite and they would install the Epic store to play it. Problem solved.
People tend to forget that the app stores are in a symbiotic relationship with the developers. Without the developers Apple/Google don’t get paid the billions in fees they charge. The developers need the app store to get their 70% cut of the product they generated.
If another store came along, that charged less fees, developers would test the waters and probably leave Apple/Google store, eventually. This is what Apple and Google don’t want, free market choice.