It's a catch 22. I'm in the same boat. In fact they forced closed my accounts and I'm still arguing with support.
The thing is the average person will go to the play Store as their trusted, vetted source. They trust Google. And when you deliver your APK in any other way, Android will throw up at 'install from unknown sources' warning which is an insane barrier to get people to use your application.
I honestly don't see anyway around this.