They had a business selling blue boxes, which allow people to make long-distance calls for free (among other things). At the time national long distance calls cost roughly $4 (in today's money) per minute, with international calls being even more costly. Woz and Jobs made about $30k (in today's dollars) off of this illicit business and perhaps cost the phone company many many times more than that in potential lost revenue (possibly millions).
Compare that sort of "youthful indiscretion" to Aaron Swartz's far more selfless and far less damaging JSTOR hijinx.
On the flip side of this, consider that had Jobs and Woz never experimented with phone phreaking and never built those blue boxes they may never have had the guts to build Apple. Being a disruptor is about pushing limits, and sometimes the law runs right through those limits.
To be objective, they also did things back when the damage you could do was fairly limited because of our lack of reliance on computer infrastructure.
The growth in punishment for computer crimes has grown with the importance of computers to modern society.