Here in the flyover states, I've always[1] used hacking to mean the act of modifying existing assets, usually from a third party, as opposed to original creation. Hacking is useful, especially in the age of open source, but in this sense, to call an innovator a hacker seems like calling a chef a chopper.
Do we now use hacking to mean any software development, or to mean modifying the way people live?
Or maybe it's simpler than that - an expansion on the old black-hat connotation: hackers are no longer mere bandits on the frontier, but a whole culture of badass cowboys rewriting the rules of gold country.
Clearly this is not the Foremost Important Question of Our Time[2], but I'd genuinely like to know how the hackers of Hacker News think of themselves.
[1] I'm kind of old. [2] Presumably, "how will Google be made irrelevant?"