https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Com
Maybe Urban Dictionary is also populated by people who misunderstand the community, or maybe you weren't as deep as you thought.
I would tend to expect that if OP is right that there's more nuance to Coms and it's not primarily about crime, there would be at least one alternate definition, because, as you note, anyone can make a definition there, and it's emphatically not a site dominated by the HN bubble.
That there is no alternate says that the crime-centric understanding of Coms is the primary one on at least one other site that doesn't match OP's stereotype.
Do you really think that anything would meaningfully change in the world if these little niche communities disappeared tomorrow? They’re a rounding error on the internet.
https://www.wired.com/story/764-com-child-predator-network/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/09/the-dark-nexus-between-h...
and some of it is some real depraved shit: https://www.maargentino.com/the-pillars-of-the-com-network/
Some of us are old enough to know that none of this is new.
No one is saying these are "hardened" criminals, but none of them care about the consequences of what they are participating in and that is just as disqualifying for public service.
The mob mentality of rule following software engineers on here who are throwing out the accusation that these are all hardened criminals that want to burn down society here are a testament to the fact that hackernews is a cesspool of careerists. If you haven't ventured down these, I would even argue that you've no idea how the internet actually functions outside of your usual entertainment holes.