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