Malware in the past has been an enormous problem, with huge numbers of average users affected. To say that we don't need protection against malware because it's not a major problem now is circular reasoning, and ignores literally decades of effort to bring the problem under control.

For a certain generation of adults, going to visit your non-technical parents socially meant budgeting extra time to eradicate the adware of the month. It was a constant problem affecting large swaths of users, and fixing it was beyond the technical ability of most people.

Edited: fix typo.