That's not what a deal that someone "can't refuse" means -- that's just a deal, a mutually beneficial exchange, one of the foundations of society. "Can't refuse" generally means a threat of out-of-band (e.g. physical) harm if the deal isn't accepted.

The Epic Store is free (as in beer) to create an account on, and there's no hardware lock-in -- Steam, the Epic Store, and other platforms like GOG Galaxy/itch.io/whatever Ubisoft has can all be run on the same computer at the same time. The situation is completely different from Apple's app store.