I'm a little skeptical of this whole shtick that online criminals are just "nerds in basements." A nerd can do a lot more damage to your life with a computer than your average petty criminal.
While the drug trade can cause people to become victims (just as the legal trade in alcohol or cigarettes or many other commodities), such victimhood is incidental to the production and consumption of the illicit good rather than inherent to it. I think this distinction between what sorts of contraband could be traded on Silk Road (even if it was not adhered to in practice) is a big part of why many people were/are sympathetic towards Silk Road.
Which isn't to say they're allergic to profit, but since its closer to an open-market they can no longer rely on being the only game in town. Testimony from buyers on the dark markets shows that some dealers even include free drugs, which is completely unheard of.
If the cocaine cowboys of the 70s and 80s were the first wave and the crack kingpins of the 90s were the second wave, then the cyber vendors are the third wave drug dealers.