Are you saying that the entire mobile app business is built on a flawed business model? How do you build a mobile app business that can survive being blacklisted by Apple and Google?

I didn't say that, no.

And I didn't think Google was involved here?

Google is totally involved. They aren’t as egregious about it as Apple, but they are equally guilty of stomping out competition. If you get blacklisted from Google Play, you’re basically done. Your cost for acquiring new users just skyrocketed because you now have to somehow educate people on how to enable “unknown sources”, convince them to ignore all of the incessant scary warnings about malware, etc. on top of your regular advertising costs. Unless your main demographic is computer geeks, there’s no way to succeed.

Not to mention that if you DO manage to build a successful competitor to GPlay, you’ll have to worry about Google’s “white hat” hit squad at Project Zero.

Google is involved in Epic's dispute with Apple? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that anywhere. Could you clarify?

How can it be for the same reason? Google allows side-loading and third-party app stores.

Read the article.