You have to realize what an outlier you are. First, as others have pointed out, subscription based channels came later on. Cable TV had ads right from the get

You have to realize what an outlier you are. First, as others have pointed out, subscription based channels came later on. Cable TV had ads right from the get go. Second, the vast majority of cable subscribers did not have subscription based channels. Most people either had basic (e.g. 20 channels), or some sort of premium tier (50 channels) which did not have ad free options. You had to pay separately an extra $10-20/month to get the ad-free ones (e.g. HBO). To counter your anecdote, almost no one I knew paid extra for them. As in, sitting right now, I cannot even come up with one name. They were for "rich" folks. Plebes like us simply rented if we wanted ad free. Finally, I really don't get your point. When you got your ad free cable channels, the majority of cable channels carry ads. Even with the Prime/Disney degradation, the proportion of streaming services that have a paid no-ads option is still higher than you ever had at any point in cable history. You want ad-free streaming options? They still exist!