Maybe, just maybe, the middleman is adding some value? Otherwise creators would have skipped the middleman a long time ago?

Also, how is the money getting to the creator exactly?

My guess is a middleman like Apple isn't necessarily a problem if the content were DRM free. It's the sword dangling overhead which may invalidate ones license without reimbursement, or limit access arbitrarily that is burdensome.

When I downloaded a movie from Netflix I couldn't watch it on vacation because of region locking.

Region locking is typically do to contracts with the content creators, actors, etc. typically has nothing to do with the middleman. DRM isn’t much different, the content creators often demand/expect it.

P.s. I’ve worked in this space.

While true the middlemen often are more visible than rights holders. And some are big enough to push back on DRM as Apple did with music.