i don’t recall ever seeing ads that ship malware

It's a very good business and it exists.

that what people say of Denuvo.

It's good, because Denuvo and every DRM framework is malware too.

(not sure what you meant by the jehovah’s witnesses part. are they actually starving?)

Since when is starving a requirement to accept harassment from every company out there? On my own computer nonetheless. It's basic protection. I don't install viruses because you ask for it.

You don't have to click an ad for it to be a security threat.

It is possible to abuse the mechanics of a web browser to send a fullscreen ad that resists typical means of app closing, scaring a normal user into clicking to install something malicious.

The weakest link is always the user, and advertisements are literally meant to target users. Exactly how hard do you think it is for an ad network to target the kinds of people most likely to get scared and just click the [Fix] button that downloads the malware?

Your average user gets infected and they take a computer to a repair shop to get it fixed, which costs money.

If the ad network would accept liability for damages caused by malware ads their ad networks delivered to people, I could be more sympathetic to the position that blocking ads is unfair to the content creaters paid by ad views. But if I'm financially responsible for fixing damage caused by ads, then I reserve the right to block them.

Full stop.

Ads were a big source of malware around 2000.

I think you got the piracy part backwards. The ad companies are the thieves. Their ads ship with trackers that steal the consumer private information. It's an invasion on privacy and it's a security threat. I blog and don't implement any ads to protect my readers