The point, for their spying purposes, is that it's significantly more hassle to gain access to bulk communications that don't physically flow through your country. The point for us is that greater decentralization of internet infrastructure is confirmed - from the horse's mouth - as an actionable and reasonable, albeit partial, measure of resistance.
You are right, though. That's more like buying time than actually solving the problem.
What's the point? Wherever data is routed or stored, it will eventually be tapped. There is no government that can be trusted not to do this.
Encryption of everything, all the time. That's what we need.