there's a very simple reason.

I use Tor for most websites, because it adds noise to the signal, and that helps people who need Tor (including sometimes me). So if you're using Tor anyway for regular websites (loads of normal websites have a .onion version now, e.g. DuckDuckGo) that have a .onion url, guess what? The .onion site is faster to load, because the extra latency of sending it back out of Tor through an exit (and then back into Tor and only then on to your browser) is avoided, .onion traffic goes into Tor once and then straight back out to you.



I dunno, it's usually the same media sources that are full of "darkweb" ghost stories that say things like that.

Thought experiment: if Tor really works, and if newspapers aren't lying when they say they don't have intimate connections to intelligence agencies, then how could they possibly know what people are using Tor for?