I mean it doesn't say directly that he didn't have a backup, but its heavily implied that he either didn't have one, or that it was stored in the same place as the original copies - which is about as good as not having one.

This apparently happened with “no explanation and no recourse,” putting “terabytes of family photos” and their entire message history out of reach, as well as preventing the ability to sync work across devices.

If he had a copy elsewhere, why would he be worried about losing access to terabytes of family photos?

Also, the end of the article discusses not storing all your data in one place...

If you store your photos and files in a single place, it’s a good idea to back them up to multiple locations to protect against something going wrong. But with how integrated devices are these days, it’s hard to avoid having all your apps, purchases and media within a single ecosystem. In cases like that, there’s not a lot you can do.

... so I don't think its wrong to make the logical leap that the guy wasn't following the 3-2-1 rule.