The missing features are software based. They’re not selling inferior phones. The article even mentions that getting this to work in other countries involves different issues such as regulation and legality of the features. This really is not new.
And sometimes missing "features" are a good thing. Like when you see people complaining about annoying ads on monitors / system apps, etc. in the US but not elsewhere
There were examples when the same phone was released with different hardware in different regions, but it's not mentioned in the article...
E.g. in 2022, Samsung S22 European version had Exynos 2200 SOC, while in other regions it had Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, IIRC there were some performance differences between them.
Since the S7? Not at all - they've been doing that much earlier. The Galaxy Note 3 was Exynos based in India and some other regions, but Snapdragon based in the US and Europe.
It's been a common thing for years from all major phone manufacturers, as far as I know. It was the reason I careful when buying a One Plus 7 Pro back in the day.