I don't think people who thought this before Snowden were considered crazy. Everyone knew about signals intelligence or suspected it to some degree.
What makes a tin-foil hatter is not necessarily their insight into what is happening, but what that *means*. This was supposed to be some sort of New World Order/Illuminati plot to rule the world and control our precious bodily fluids. Which isn't exactly what we got.
The NSA is expected to monitor communications. It is a signals intelligence agency. Anyone who knew what the NSA does knows that it monitors that stuff.
I also don't think anyone who knew what the NSA did truly believed that the NSA didn't monitor data internal to the US in doing their duties. While technically illegal, I don't know that anyone really cares as long as this information isn't used against normal citizens who aren't terrorists. That's a pretty shitty thing for an idealist to swallow, but business as usual for anyone who is the least bit pragmatic about it.
The fact is, no one cares now because while Snowden did a good job of embarrassing the US government, he didn't actually expose a program to keep neat records on individuals which was used, J. Edgar Hoover-style, to get their way to create a reign of terror and a new state panopticon. It was like lifting up a rock and seeing the bugs scurrying around under it. It's not pleasant to look at, but at the same time, it was exactly what everyone expected already.
You know what the biggest threat to the US is today? The US Government, but not one piece of the US Government, the whole thing. Not because it is an Orwellian nightmare, but because it is a bureaucratic nightmare that is decoupling from the control of the public by clever manipulation of hot button issues and gerrymandering. The NSA does things for the same reason the VA executives covered things up: they are only looking out for their own territories and trying to save face. They only care about Congress, and Congress has a 12% rating and still gets re-elected. So what does that say about who the government really works for?