So Epic Games have 10 demans from Google. One of this demands is to allow third party stores to access applications that are hosted on Google Play Store:
If a Third-Party App Store’s User wishes to download and install an app not then available on that Third-Party App Store, Google shall have the Google Play Store download and install that app on the Third-Party App Store User’s device through a background process similar to the Alley Oop integration offered by Google to certain third-party Developers.
And the judge ordered Google to calculate the costs of developing such mechanism which will basically allow third party stores to list applications from Google Play Store in their own stores.
Google will file by June 24, 2024, a proffer stating in detail the tech work required and economic costs, if any, to provide “Catalog Access” and “Library Porting” to competing app stores for a period of up to 6 years. See MDL Dkt. No. 952 at 7. The proffer may also address tech work and economic costs for the distribution of third-party app stores through the Google Play Store.
It’s that you done have to keep the play store app on your phone if you want to minimize google’s presence on it. Maybe this way you also don’t need to accept the ToS to be able to download those apps, but not sure about that one.
But you do need to have play store installed if the epic app store needs it to function