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An analysis of WiFi "theft"

The original meaning of "theft" was that an object was taken without authority to do so, depriving its rightful owner of it. If an object is stolen, the thief now has it, and you don't. The cost of the theft is the value of the object lost. Punishment was historically limited to triple that value, or thereabouts.
"Theft" of a service is receiving that service without having paid for it. The cost of that theft is the price of the service received but not compensated. There is potentially a degree of loss like the prior case, where an object may no longer be enjoyed by its rightful owner. If it is assumed that the service would certainly have resulted in revenue, then the rightful "owner" of that revenue has lost something he cannot enjoy.
But that consequence is less certain than outright theft of an object. It may or may not have resulted in actual revenue.
"Theft" of WiFi is a bit of a unique situation. It is not an object that is taken away and the owner of it deprived of its use. It is not a service for revenue which is potentially lost when it is not fairly compensated.
WiFi is a constant service which is only partially used in most cases by it's rightful owner. "Theft" of part of that service may or may not even be noticed by the rightful owner. Unauthorized use of WiFi bandwidth will frequently not negatively impact the owner at all.
In other words, it's often difficult to find any actual harm or damage to such unauthorized use of bandwidth.
If, on the other hand, an unauthorized user hogs enough bandwidth to be noticeable and to negatively impact the owner, then it's a more clear-cut problem. The owner is not getting the full value for which he has paid, and it's the unauthorized user who has caused that decrease in value.
This last scenario is most like trespassing, in my mind. The bandwidth paid for and owned by the rightful owner is much like a parcel of land of a specific size. Like an owner of a large ranch, he may rarely if ever put the entire purchase to use. The impact of a temporary user on his broadband WiFi network would be just as negligible as the impact of a hunter camping overnight on a corner of a 1000 acre ranch.

Overall, the punishment should at least vaguely fit the crime. Unauthorized access to an unsecured, broadcast SSID WiFi network should be legal or very minimally punished. Because most wireless computers will automatically connect to such networks when one is in range, the owner may easily be completely unaware that unauthorized access has even occurred, let alone have any malicious intent.

At the very worst, such access should be on the order of misdemeanor trespassing, with a $50 fine and a shake of the finger.

It should absolutely not be prosecuted under statutes enacted to punish dangerous criminal network hacking and digital espionage, etc.. That's a clear case of misapplication of the law.