What's a jealousy client and why does EA have one?
It's what you get when you decide to create your own DRM client solely for distributing the games you publish because you don't want Steam to get a cut of your profits—classic jealousy. Note that it's important not to confuse jealousy with envy. Jealousy is protectiveness of something that is yours; envy is desire for something that belongs to someone else.
Most if not all publishers with their own DRM clients used to sell their games via Steam. Ubisoft still does, except that you have to launch Steam and UPlay simultaneously in order to play Ubisoft games on Steam, which is why I no longer play Ubisoft's games.
DRM is definitively anti-consumer. The best-case scenario is no DRM at all, but if there must be DRM, then Steam has been universally adopted whether one likes it or not and is much more tolerable than pretty much every alternative, especially built-in shit like Denuvo (which unfortunately also sometimes shows up in Steam games, leading to mass downvoting campaigns). While it's not unethical for every big publisher to run off and create their own DRM client, it's very annoying to consumers, who'd prefer to have one DRM client installed instead of a whole shitload of them.
As usual I'm left to marvel at the modern RPG Codex in which some people unironically defend Windows 10, DLC gouging practices, EA/EA Origin, and then half the fucking Codex Steam group lights up with "X is playing Fallout 4" the day after that garbage was released. A few years ago, I might have expected these people to be ashamed, but at this point I sadly know better.