Is this even an argument? We don't pay for Apple's engineers/designers, Foxconn's workers when buying an iPhone. But they won't be paid if iPhone stops selling.
Ok? The point still stands that advertising ultimately pays for the content. Manufacturers buy raw parts first and then recoup the costs by selling the final product, does that mean consumers aren't actually paying for the business?
Security is an eternal problem and a completely separate topic from advertising as a business model. Do you suggest we stop using email because some people got scams and viruses? Or can we talk about communications while acknowledging that it's separate from implementation and UX issues?
This is such a pedestrian argument, as if advertising pays for the content to be made and then hosted - when the truth of the matter is that someone else pays for the content to be created (and hosted) and that cost is recouped (with additional profit added on top), after the fact by advertising.
For example, advertising companies are not paying for YouTube content creators to create their content and then for it to be hosted on YouTube. Advertising companies seek those with the largest audience (typically, that requires having made content a priori, yeah?) and then make partnerships with those people and, then, those people may make videos pushing those products.
WSJ, since this is predominantly an American board, doesn't have advertisers paying their reporters', photographers', editors', etc. salaries. Advertisers are not paying for the content to be created or to be hosted. All of that is done by WSJ, who then recoups the costs via advertising, yeah?
So, the only point at which "95% of the content on the internet that ads pay for" is true, is (predominantly) after the content has been made and hosted and is only true over time (e.g.: not with immediate effect).
>Malware isn't advertising
You have that backwards from the OC's comment: Advertising networks have been used to push malware.
>...and security is an issue in any industry and sector.
This comes across as a whataboutism, "So? Other industries have security problems, too!" and, whilst true, largely ignores the fact that those other industries (mostly at large) weren't leveraged as attack vectors to spread malware. (I'm assuming your meaning of "industry" infers the meaning of "commercial industry", that generates revenue in exchange for a product or service, which would ignore the obvious things like P2P and the like.)