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lol yeah, that’s what they said about cable tv.

Fool me once, …

cable TV had ads from day 1.

It certainly did not.

Cable TV started as a way to expand the reach of broadcast TV. Broadcast TV has commercials. Hence cable TV always had commercials.

It depends on how you slice the question.

The first cable-only station to do ads was USA in 1977. But since cable always carried local stations, cable always had channels where ads were run.

"fool me once" only applies when it's the same entity doing the fooling

Or the same process...