[pwojnaro]

It's entirely possible that the 24hr minimum is driven by the operational overhead, not just the licensing terms. Since this is bare metal, re-provisioning between customer sessions might require some level of human interaction, and this needs to be baked into the cost model of such a service.

[alborzb]

Amazon openly admits it is because of licensing terms.

From https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/#Pricing:

"Billing for EC2 Mac instances is per second with a 24-hour minimum allocation period to comply with the Apple macOS Software License Agreement"

[pwojnaro]

Thanks, I missed that. Looks like Apple added the section on leasing (3. Leasing for Permitted Developer Services) in the SLA for Big Sur in November 2020.