There used to sometimes be ads in paperback books. In the middle of the book would be a thicker page, with a full color ad. I remember cigarette ads were common.
Terry Pratchett found that one of his publishers had actually changed the text of his books to insert
Advertisements, something along the lines of "and at this time our heros enjoyed a hearty bowl of $SOUP"
This would be a terrible trend if it returned - even in ebooks. I imagine there would be some software that you could run it through to strip all ads though.
If the ad is on a separate page (both sides) we can tear it off. If it is part of a page, then :(
Internet has trained people not to pay for things, for more than a decade. Most people wouldn't think twice about dropping 5$ on a single cup of starbucks coffee, but would not spend the same 5$ for an email account (without ads). It's not going to be easy to change this behavior, especially on the net.
Here's an article about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/books/review/Collins-t.htm...