Re: A few pertinent questions....
They are actually making more money out of the deal. On the App Store they get charged $3 on a $10 purchase. If you buy direct then they charge you $8 for the same thing, so unless their transaction cost is more than $0.99 (unlikely, CC companies charge circa 2-3%) they get more in their pocket.
Meanwhile Apple also support purchases by gift card (so they need to give stores a cut), customer refunds (remember the scandal when kids were purchasing using their parents linked credit cards) and curation. It's not all gravy like Epic seem to claim.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
