Ah, I’m not giving a full picture there. Technically you can use layered encryption like tor uses on the clearnet. Tor additionally exposes tor-only services that route exclusively via tor’s onion routing (not just http wrapped inside an encryption onion).
i2p works differently under the hood, but the shared piece is exclusive services, only accessible through a non-standard protocol. That’s how you’d get a different web. Unless we’re talking physical layer stuff.
It was hardly a scandal. They complied with their local laws, as would be expected. They’re very well-known to be a swiss company. Complying with swiss law shouldn’t be a surprise.
A more fair criticism would be that, after this event they changed the precise wording in their marketing (and maybe tos?) to more accurately reflect what they could offer.
You can do that with a CPU, it’s just slower.