If it were like steam and GoG, where at worst they're just mirroring each other, and the competition is more (in the eyes of consumers) based on the launcher, storefronts, and pricing, i would expect a lot less outrage over it.
Epic is forcing people to use their launcher, the same way that console makers force their respective marketplace for digital goods and online access. And using the money infusion from an even shadier company (Tencent) to bankroll exclusivity deals seemingly every other day; worse still, preying on crowd funded and indie developer titles that had no intention of being on the EGS in the first place.
Epic couldn't even get its firsy seasonal sale right, which upset end users and publishers that are, or were, working with them.
Unfortunately, this is not the same Epic that managed to make such a superior port of UT 2004, to be on the PPC Mac of all things, having Ut04 running on a power mac g5 better than it did on a then top end Athlon 64 pc with dual 6800 ultra cards in SLI. This is also not the same Epic games that, when other third parties wrote off the ps3 as a total loss, had Tim Sweeney then be like "let's see what we can do" to push out the amazing showpiece of Unreal Toruney in real time on the PlayStation 3.
This is an Epic Games that wants to chase unsustainable growth because they got a ridiculous amount of money from Fortnite players. They're throwing their weight around more assertively than a coked out Sumo wrestler.