I wouldn't say it gets coopted. I'd say it has historically gotten appropriated, and then the public has been too ignorant to tell the difference.
(Either through the unwillingness or incompetence of any of the original disciples to popularize the true meaning, or simple giving way beneath ever better funded commercial interests)
I'm quibbling over words too. But the difference to me is that the problem is not that "hacking" (or "hippie culture", "patriot", "environmentalism", or "American") gets used in a context at odds with what its founders would espouse.
It's that a lot of times that secondary (historically speaking) definition then becomes the dominant definition in the public's mind. Whatever mutually exclusive word for that is the one I want to use.
Because, ultimately, it doesn't matter a rat's ass if my local LUG knows the more positive definition of a hacker, if a geeky 8-year old with a penchant for figuring out interesting things to do with computers is surrounded by exposure (news, adults, school, popular media) to the negative definition.
(Either through the unwillingness or incompetence of any of the original disciples to popularize the true meaning, or simple giving way beneath ever better funded commercial interests)