Why have digital artists extracted their imagery to become objects?

I am an artist. A student. Currently dabbling in both digital workspace (CAD drawings, Animation, Video, Html5) and physical workspace (etchings, steel sculpture, installations). Currently working on my dissertation, I am asking the community why digital artists in the likes of Petra Cortright, John Rafman and Laure Prouvost are removing the work away from the network and systems that have produced it. The removal of this, commodifies everything they make and removes the openness of works global viewership. Have they sold themselves out to institutions that need physical editions of the work to continue investing in physical value and brand image. The information and subjects that they are so concerned about have a humour to the physical relationship of them at hand. Maybe as artists we need these tangible things for self-worth, enabling us to let go and make it age and decay in a gallery vault. I understand that more and more of these digital works are being sold as (e)editions, a license, a subscription. But more and more of this work has started to become 'gallery' worthy and shows an influx of pointless displays and print outs. Even in my own work I am questionable to this type of physical relief, painstakingly etching digital designs for the worthless material, surface and process. Everything in my own practice has this degree of digital planning and the need for it existing in physical space. Do you think these artists have the same desires? To impact an audience by its tangibility, to replicate information as a user to draw just a little more importance to its subject. Or am I a traditional artist too caring for my material process to even directly question my subject?