[satanspastaroll]

Computing itself is the cheap part, especially on spot instances. It's the outbound bandwidth that'll kill you

[einpoklum]

Ok, so s/computing/computing, storage and network I\/O/ . Same argument.

... although if it's outbound bandwidth - if you can take care of your compute, maybe it's possible to purchase outgoing bandwidth at an hourly resolution, rather than "whatever your wires can send us", and have your flexibility.