I think it's both of these things plus money. If the culture has an interest in privacy, the technology exists to make privacy feasible and someone can make money from it, you have a path of least resistance (or at least a level playing field) towards more privacy.
I don't think I could agree that the "author is wrong" without some cavets, but I do agree that privacy is in part driven by culture. As an anecdote, I recall when I lived abroad just how many of my German friends used false information in their Facebook profiles. They were rarely under their real name, and the pictures were often obscure and few in number. It wasn't universal in every instance, but it was common enough that the expat Americans such as myself would sometimes talk about "going anonymous" like the Germans did. When I asked a friend or two about this, the answer was always the same. Privacy. There was simply a much greater concern over groups that had their data. (I'm inclined to believe there's a historical basis for this, but it's just supposition.)
So I think people will be more concerned about privacy when it becomes important enough for them to do so. And I believe that's not likely to happen until the evidences of the abuses against themselves becomes too large to ignore. But the abuses of privacy today are largely unseen and unheard. And so the culture of being social and sharing is more dominant than the culture of privacy.
I don't hold developers and engineers directly responsible for ensuring people's privacy (though they could certainly do more to improve it. Their business model often relies on people giving up their privacy, true. But as Facebook stated long ago, "the information users provide is voluntary." Users do not seem to mind volunteering.
China is considerably different as well. My completely non-techie first wife could still quite easily use VPNs and knew what they did, for example. If you are in a culture where the government interferes with network access, constantly watches what you do, censors you, and sometimes even confiscates property, then the work arounds become much more common place knowledge.
