I thought so too at one point. However, airports need tens of thousands of employees, so middle of nowhere, nope. Doesn't work. Everything from "drag this box here" employees, waiters/waitresses to highly specialized engineers to accountants. Also, it is a big advantage for hubs to have a steady flow of traffic to the hub. Thirdly, most carriers don't just get a hub from the government, the government cheats further. So in practice most carriers have tax advantages in their hub, as well as preferential treatment.

Although getting governments to approve middle of nowhere airports also doesn't seem to work too well. Why ? No idea. Perhaps issue is that they too would need to get personnel into the middle of nowhere.

But the current situation means a number of things. One, aircraft carriers will buy lots of little planes and won't do well. Second, they won't be matching Emirates or Etihad on pricing or customer conditions any time soon. Emirates and Etihad and a few others will do well.