I'm convinced that I overstated the problem in my initial post.

It's clearly viable to distribute outside the App Store, but "easily avoid it" is also a little overstated IMO.

Apple has increased the friction for outside distribution and 15-30% off the top of all revenue is a wild thing to demand of anyone.

Keep in mind that the government is coming along for another 30-50%, leaving value creators with a small fraction of the value they create.