Third-Party Antivirus/Malware for Macs?

A variety of chains in this forum discuss the pros and cons of third-party antivirus/malware apps to supplement native security systems on the Mac. The various participants in these conversations split but most leaned in the direction of recommending against. Meaning, no need for supplemental antivirus and advising against it on the grounds of potential system conflicts and slowing of Macs' systems.

Just to clear this up I called Apple Support twice in the last couple of days and asked the question directly (about my new MacBook Air): do you recommend or not recommend use of third-party antivirus/malware apps?

The answer was an unequivocal yes in both calls. It was clear they had an official advisory on this. Both Apple support team members separately said Apple recommends use of Malwarebytes (free version) to scan for malware periodically.

That ended the debate for me.