system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If anyone can access the "Deep Web" by downloading Tor, how are illegal sites not getting shut down immediately?

I recently watched season 2 of House of Cards and learned about the "Deep Web," and from the little I've read about it, it's mostly used for things like drug and weapon trading.

The thing is, apparently literally anyone can access the deep web just by downloading a browser called Tor.  If this is true, how have all these sites been able to last for years?

EDIT: Wow, this kinda blew up overnight.  Thanks for all the responses, interesting stuff!
gpt
Just because you can access a site on TOR does not mean you can find out where the server(s) hosting the site is.  That's actually sort of the whole point of TOR:  no one knows where anyone else is but everyone can still communicate.

If you can't find the server the site is hosted on, it's very hard to shut it down.

Add to this, that even when you do find the server, you're unlikely to find more than a few of the people operating it.  Since they don't know who each other are, you get one or two people and the others just get a new server and are back up and running within a week or two.