Publishers are in business to make money, so they'll try and do so, certainly. Can they make more money by making their games digitally exclusive to Origin? I guess we could speculate, but I doubt any of us have numbers to back it up. I'm hoping not.
I don't really need numbers and I'm not trying to convince you. It just makes sense. They keep more money by retaining control over the price and not having to payout to other vendors to sell their games for them. I'm not claiming it will happen overnight or that they will be successful, just that it is where they want this to go.
What do you see as the something we can do about it? I find it hard to believe that complaining on Blue's forums it going to have any impact on EA's business decision(s).
Inform others, bitch, whatever. Anything is better than nothing at all. Information posted on a single website isn't limited in exposure, that's the power of the Internet. Dice/EA didn't change their recent DLC kerfuffle because everyone kept quiet and was apathetic about it. If you're going to complain and tell other people about it then generally it helps to do it before its an accepted practice.