"Hacking" these days - purpose?

[Peter E . Fry]

Simple question: What's the purpose of obtaining illicit access to 
random devices on the Internet these days, considering that a large 
majority of attacks are now launched from cheap, readily available and 
poorly managed/overseen "cloud" services?  Finding anything worthwhile 
to steal on random machines on the Internet seems unlikely, as does 
obtaining access superior (in e.g. location, bandwidth, anonymity, 
etc.) to the service from which the attack was launched.

I was thinking about this the other day as I was poking at my 
firewall, and hopped onto the archives (here and elsewhere) to see if 
I could find any discussion.  I found a few mentions (e.g. "Microsoft 
is hacking my Asterisk???"), but I didn't catch any mention of 
purpose.  Am I missing something obvious (either a purpose or a 
discussion of such)?  Have I lost my mind entirely?  (Can't hurt to 
check, as I'd likely be the last to know.)

Peter E. Fry