If they win, then the Government changes, and the whole society changes after that. If they lose, they end up dead or in jail for whatever crimes the Government said they committed (and if there isn't a crime they can use, they'll make a new law for it like they tried with the SHIELD bill against whistleblowers)
The hacktivists aren't doing any real damage to society, and in fact they may actually end up helping it a lot, in the same way Wikileaks changed some things for the better, and they were also hunted down by Governments.
The real damage they are doing is to the people in power, and those people will fight to keep things the same and get away with their own crimes against the people they should represent.
I think we'll experience major changes in the way our democracies work by the end of this decade. For the fast times we live in, and real time information and feedback, we can only give some feedback once every 4 years, and it's usually just 2 choices: the one that has been in power, and another one. Politicians need to become a lot more accountable, and our feedback should be a lot more direct and often than once every 4 years through the voting of a party or a president.