I have had an app on the play store, it's a bitch for indie devs. Just today I had to update my account info after there was a notification that google would delete my account for not being active. If I hadn't logged in over a 2 month period I would've lost a developer account I paid for just so I can publish free apps. I assume the App store is even worse.
One thing that courts and antitrust lawyers won't understand is that these "stores" have annihilated the free market for phone apps. Market entry for phones is just too hard because you need to be an actual for profit business for any of the hassle to be worth it.
I just started my foray into Kotlin development. I was very pleased at the language and ease of getting a simple, yet great looking app up and running. I was ready to publish. Verified my ID, paid the fee, and... good fucking lord the rest of the shit I had to account for after that made me want to delete the whole thing and never come back.
I know I can host the apk myself, go to other app stores, etc... but Jesus Christ. I'm sure it kills off a lot of spam bots and bad actors. But, i'd rather just get interviewed by somebody at Google to tell them how undeniably dumb and simple my joke app is then go through this process.