Eh?
I don't really understand what this article is on about... a few weeks ago you could probably view around 5% of Facebook profiles of people you weren't friends with due to the fact that a lot of people had never changed their privacy settings and that you were in the same Network as them (e.g. London). A couple of weeks ago they got rid of Networks so the amount of profiles you could see who you weren't friends with dropped to less than 0.1% (these numbers are completely unscientific, but if you click on on 1000 random Facebook profiles, you'll be lucky to find 1 that you can now see as opposed to ~50 before).
Previously all data on Facebook used to be a case of choosing whether you wanted it to be viewable by Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends, etc. All they've done now is make it so you can add custom settings for every individual person if you so wish? I don't see how what they've done detracts from anything, it only adds more options (although in my opinion, somewhat pointless). The default is friends only for everything (maybe not for new users, but certainly for all existing users).