Dedicated servers are anywhere from 6x to 10x cheaper then cloud. So unless you only need a machine for a few days month its almost always cheaper to go dedicated.
*Except dedicated servers at Rackspace... which are crazy expensive
The Internets were developed by Al Gore at the request of the U.S. military in the early 1960s as an expedient means by which to share pornography between various installations in continental United States and later, in Europe and Asia. Pornography was largely illegal at the time and before the virtuous self-sacrifice of Larry Flynt, one could find a few tit shots here and there, but pink and penetration were considered criminal obscenity punishable by death, followed by castration. In order to evade mail searches by officious police and customs officials, Internet pornography was sent by means of kibbles n' bits n' bytes, which could only be deciphered by powerful computers. One of the primary goals for the nascent system was that it be hardened enough to be available after a nuclear war, at which point porn would help to pass the time waiting for your hair to fall out, and might even be exchangeable for money or (perversely) sex.
The Vietnam War spurred further development of the Internet, in order to both allow the transfer of high quality American pornography to the troops stationed in Asia, and allow fresh CP taken in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand to quickly be transferred back to the United States. In the 1972, the decision was made to extend Internet service to American research universities, after sources at the Pentagon determined that students at MIT had a copy of Deep Throat that they would upload if given the opportunity. Although it is still often referred to as the Interweb, a reference to the spider web which once carried optical signals, this term is now technically incorrect, as information is now passed through a series of tubes, more akin to a sewer system.
"It is patently impossible to discuss social engineering or the automation of a society, i.e., the engineering of social automation systems (silent weapons) on a national or worldwide scale without implying extensive objectives of social control and destruction of human life, i.e., slavery and genocide."