The earliest dated instance of this type of joke located by QI appeared in December 1994 in a message posted to the Usenet distributed discussion system in a newsgroup called alt.buddha.short.fat.guy. The saying was freestanding without attribution, and it was surrounded by ornamental text. (Quote Investigator)

Note: There are no (or few) absolutes) This quote reminds me of the stories in the tech world about "first mover advantage;" First mover advantage has been a big benefit for a lot of startups over the years and a lot of startups have also floundered and sunk making way for the second start-up.