DRM is the price that content providers ask of Netflix. Netflix is fine with that, because the alternative is less content. Browser makers are ok with that, because the alternative is fewer people on browsers and more people on native apps. I'm personally ok with that because I dislike installing apps and I prefer the browser, although most people don't have a preference.
1. It avoids the ethical problem of pushing DRM onto people who just want a browser. (Firefox does offer a EME-free version, but you have to look for it, when you might not even know what EME is). If a CDM module installed automatically by Firefox becomes an exploit vector, they are ethically responsible, in my opinion.
2. It preserves browser competition. CDM modules only work in approved browsers, so people building new browsers are at a disadvantage. They may be able to use Firefox's sandboxed component, but it's not clear yet.
3. It avoids having second-class OSs for those browsers. For example, Firefox runs on MIPS and SPARC, but the CDM modules don't.
4. It makes it more expensive to use DRM.
This misses my point. No one cares about DRM - not the streaming service, or the browser vendors or most importantly, the users. Consumers have voted with their wallets on this - they'd rather watch Netflix than torrent.
Maybe I'm being callous, but I don't care much about "the ethical problem of pushing DRM". Nor do I care much about MIPS and SPARC. How many end users are running MIPS and SPARC anyway? And I especially don't care about it being difficult to use DRM. All of this sounds like ideological purity, which in my opinion, is a waste of time.
Could you list some benefits that would be appreciated by more than 0.1% of society?
In fact it seems they have apps for all platforms out there, except the traditional desktop, something it would cost them almost nothing to provide on top of their existing app-offerings.
Basically Netflix is the best proof you have that you don't need DRM in HTML.
And yet here we are. It's absolutely infuriating.