Monitors don't need drivers. Your GPU needs drivers, and you might need color correction for your monitor.
Microslop decided that any device that is plugged in might need drivers. They allow device manufacturers to specify an arbitrary program to be downloaded and executed by Windows Update, any time a device they make is plugged in.
The difference isn't digital vs physical. Either medium can have DRM. It's whether you own your copy or not.
Physical DRM like the classic dial-a-pirate is owned by you. You can choose to hand someone a copy of the game and the physical DRM, and they can play it. Nobody can take that right away from you.
Online DRM will always have the flaw of someone being able to take away your rights, for any reason. Thus, you don't own a copy of the game. Since digital games can't have physical DRM, the only way to truly own a digital copy of a game is DRM-free.
Microsoft is the company that approved the software to automatically download and run as admin when a specific device is plugged in. The OEM submitted malware and Microsoft approved it. Both are at fault for letting malware download and run on your device.
In the case of vulnerabilities, MS is fully aware of this happening frequently and has announced they want to do something about it, but hasn't actually done anything about it.