The truth is actually somewhere in-between, whether SifJar and tysonrss agree with that or not.
Homebrew is a wonderful goal - if you own a device, you own every right to program for it, but that's not always the case. Homebrew programming is always the brainchild of dedicated programmers and hackers who wish to allow everyone to program for the platform they love, and that's good.
Piracy on the other hand is a less-than-inspired goal - it's merely something that's supposed to allow you to play games you'd normally have to buy but can't or won't, for whatever reason. It's wrong, fair play, but so is copying music, and yet we all know how strongly listening to various types of music shapes our personality and improves us in a lot of ways as we mature. In my opinion, games are the same.
...but I digress, I'm not typing this post to discuss pro's and con's of piracy, I'm here to explain the mechanism of devices becoming backup-ready. Now, some group of hackers creates a hack that allows for usermode access - you can only program homebrew and nothing else, and that's great. Another group, even if for the sake of just looking good on the scene extends this hack further, elevates it to kernel access. Why? To modify the system, to add new functionality, to enhance the device - it's still okay though, you're only programming homebrew. Finally, someone uses this kernel mode for game loading. Why? Because at this point, they can.
Can we BLAME the groups for hacking the device in the first place? No, of course not - that was not their intention. Did their actions lead towards piracy? In a lot of ways they did, but those are indirect consequences that the creators of exploits are in no way responsible for.
That about wraps it up, I think.