That article is talking about the on-device scanning which IIRC never actually rolled out. That's separate from the iCloud scanning which they still do.

They poisoned the well by showing they were willing to do it in the first place.

Instead of the baseline being they probably are privacy first, now it is "carefully inspect every announcement to see if they are backtracking yet again"

I don't really envy their position; if I built a business that sold hardware and software and found out that customers were using my product to distribute child porn, I would probably be willing to abandon lesser principals too.