One person who was onboarded by a friend recently [...] didn't realize that it costs to use the apps, they didn't know what beneficiaries were at all.

This is the biggest problem, not that there is a cut taken, but that the information on it is not clear enough. In my view almost all apps are guilty of this, it needs to be much more prominent.

DTube does not take the beneficiary reward anymore, in fact it takes the cut but redistribute it to curators which was a move to test a new redistribution scheme in order to attract more curators hence more voting power to the benefit of creators, all the details are in DTube last post

No, DTube does still take the cut but it claims to redistribute it. DTube is still handling this cut, and the policy can change at any time. Be clear.