Someone ends up paying Apple either way. On the App Store, that person usually ends up being the developer. With the new framework (stupid as it may be), developers can choose to externalize that cost to users and make an example of how ridiculous it is. With high-demand apps like emulators, it's easy to attract users and directly expose them to the limits Apple imposes on them. That's a great vehicle for change, and I fully expect Apple to backpedal on the Core Technology Fee once it attracts broader scrutiny.

It makes perfect sense to me that paying $99/year for the App Store is cheaper than $0.50/install. But you shouldn't have to pay anything to install Free Software in the first place, so I can also see why some people would consider protesting Apple's policy to be invaluable.

As far as I know to distribute app outside AppStore you need to notarize it, so you need to pay for developer account $99 AND still $0.5 per install

That's a common misconception about free software. Free software is about the user's right to see and modify the software. Doesn't mean people can't do business with it. You're right that they usually don't require fee for installation, but that's merely because that the source code is available on the internet, in most cases, and so the user can install it without paying anyway.

Apple waves fees for non-profits (both developer annual fee and core technology fee), so at least qualifying free software organizations don't have to pay anything for either the app store or alt stores.

https://developer.apple.com/support/fee-waiver/

Free software organizations don't package software. The people developing iOS ports of FOSS applications are not going to register as a nonprofit to play Apple's silly game. It's an insult of a fig-leaf to the industry at-large.

Plenty of free software organizations package software. Heck Mozilla, Signal, VideoLAN, Mastodon, Wikimedia and Tor even package iOS software.

And frankly, most of the iOS ports of FOSS aren't themselves are closed source, so they don't really count as FOSS, but if the people who, say, ported OpenOffice to iPhone gave it to the Apache foundation? I can't see why they wouldn't release it.

Can't remember the details but isn't there also an impact to in app purchases and payment methods?

I thought the restrictions/Apple's fee around those were different?

e.x. You average $2 per install on in-app purchases you get $1.40 (30% Apple fees) on app store or $1.50 ($0.50 install fee) on 3rd party store

I really can't imagine any circumstance where the European Commission is ok with Apple charging competitors for the privilege of competing with them, in a market explicitly mandated by the DMA.

AltStore or Epic complying with Apple's current dubious terms makes no real difference.