Eh, not so bad. Some EC2 instances crashed. I take that for granted. If they'd lost S3 data, I'd think twice about using them going forward.
I take that for granted too, but it does seem like a dilemma for AWS. If instances rarely terminate, people psychologically rely upon them to remain running and end up getting careless. But it's distasteful to arbitrarily end people's instances every 7-10 days just to lower their expectations.
i think there are EC2 images now with S3 backup software pre-installed... I would think it's not that hard to install that to an existing image either...
i had two ec2 instances go down. first time it has happened to me. i was sitting right there when it happened, so.... good timing.
they emailed me about 6 hours later, but when it comes down to it, program for ec2 redundantly.