That is not "another store," and you know it. Both Microsoft and Google allow different installation methods and different stores, which Apple does not. I'm not arguing that they should, but if they aren't going to, then they need to provide an alternative or else they're going to continue to be in hot water with regulators around the world, and rightly so.
I'm tired of the big box retailer comparisons – this isn't a big box retailer and the situations are not the same. This is an online app store on a platform that doesn't allow other app stores, unlike every other platform that exists in this space.
So I agree with some of your points but Microsoft do not allow other digital stores on Xbox and do take a cut of every console software sale regardless of where it is sold through. And the new low end MS and Sony consoles are digital only (mostly to cut out the used market). Sony is being sued because it doesn’t allow people to buy gift cards at retailers. And Nintendo makes a profit on every console sold so the argument that walled gardens are okay as long as the hardware is initially sold as a loss leader is okay doesn’t work there either (never mind that consoles are eventually, over the course of their cycles, sold at profit).
Also Epic is suing Google too as they feel it is not good enough and many of the same regulators looking at Apple are looking at Google.
Basically people have to know they either want or don’t to allow walled gardens. This really isn’t about Apple which is why I find Spotify’s and Epic’s statements to the contrary lacking in honesty.