With us-east-1.linux.m1.small prices averaging around $0.03/hour, it might make sense to just set up an instance to continuously run on spot prices instead of paying the regular $0.085/hour. It won't ever be more than $0.085/hour (otherwise users would simply switch to the standard price) and it will probably be a lot less.
Unless, of course, the spot price instances are somehow different due to their transient nature, but I don't see anything to that effect on the site. Is there some reason why this would not work?
That's what I would figure, but it also makes no sense why it would exceed the on-demand price for the same instance, except perhaps in moments of sudden demand. Maybe Amazon will intentionally make it difficult to move an instance from on-demand to spot and back to discourage this?
Unless, of course, the spot price instances are somehow different due to their transient nature, but I don't see anything to that effect on the site. Is there some reason why this would not work?