I believe everyone should read this: https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/

The Core Technology Fee (CTF) is an element of the new business terms in the European Union (EU) (...) Developers can choose to remain on the App Store’s current business terms or adopt the new business terms for iOS apps in the EU. Developers can choose to remain on the App Store’s current business terms or adopt the new business terms for iOS apps in the EU.

The “Riley Tax” as you called it is mostly just an Apple tax though and to pay for infrastructure. I don’t see him getting rich from that.

I'm not saying he wants to profit from this ("greedy"), it's all about pushing people into the AltStore. I don't even believe the AltStore pricing is sustainable unlike he says on the announcement... he's most likely have to increase the price later on once he gets more Apps over there.

It looks a lot like he just wanted to release the AltStore and for that he was forced to accept the "new terms". This in turn lead to the current situation where Europeans have to pay more. He could've still done it and proceeded to publish Delta on the EU App Stores and charge the fee there instead of pushing AltStore down people's throats. OR he could've not accepted the terms all together and distributed Delta for free on EU Stores / without being charged the CTF (losing AltStore in the process).

Another thing he could've done was release the AltStore under a different developer account so the Delta account could use the old terms (no Apple Tax) and the AltStore one would use the new terms.

Look, I was even okay with paying 0,50€, 1€ or 10€ for the App but only if it was distributed through the App Store. It would take care of the potential > 1M download CTF fee and he would profit as well. No harm there. What he did instead was to gatekeep the app from the App Store in order to force people into the AltStore. Forcing people into the AltStore and a yearly fee is at least less than ideal.