The article is talking about the initial setup experience, where you could put in a fake email to bypass the requirement to sign in with a Microsoft account.
Granted it was a few months ago, but I seem to recall a command prompt keystroke and a command line command that allowed skipping online install during setup.
I don't think Microsoft can reasonably block opening the command prompt and bypassing the OOBE without breaking a lot of other things, but them removing the simpler workarounds is a pretty obvious attempt to get more people to sign in with a Microsoft account.
Microsoft does sync activation keys to your account but the license is also embedded in the firmware in recent prebuilt laptops and desktops, so you don't need a Microsoft account to activate.
I absolutely hate that. What's wrong with just entering a key? They act like it's difficult or they're doing something truly impressive when it's obvious they're getting way more out of users having an account