Hackers were much more rebellious in former days before such laws were past. My opinion the reason why hackers got more "civilized" is that you could earn quite a lot of money by getting (and staying in) a job in big tech.
For example if you started broadcasting high powered signals it wouldn't be surprising if you got checked into for being a communist/soviet.
The chain of resource acquisition and information gathering necessary to arrive at a point where you need to make a long-distance phone call you could never afford was impressive in itself. Calling card fraud by a bright minor for educational purposes against a corporate entity absolutely loathed by every adult at the time just wasn't that big of a deal.
From my perspective the point of being a hacker is individual but follows observable desire paths. A lot of those have been filled in now.