They’ve always been for-profit viruses. There’s an entire underground market where you get paid X dollars every time you get someone to install said virus. The people adding viruses to pirate sites and torrent downloads have always done it for profit, not fun. Of course there may be one or two black hats out there just trying to fuck shit up, but the majority of it has always been about money.
Not as weird as reddit. Go look at the front page these days. There are posts like “what’s your name?” With thousands of upvotes. Completely worthless drivel is getting driven to the front page.