The problem is that google count each process of the python runtime as a separate instance and count them when they run only partial hours (amazon counts this way too, but you can run many, many python programs at the same time even on a micro instance).
It's not fair to make assumptions like this. I have a Google App Engine app which doesn't push put a lot MBs each day, but does use a fair amount of CPU, and I'll pay for it. It's not a poorly designed service, it's a service which doesn't generate a lot of traffic (when measured in MB), but I'm getting value from it elsewhere. In this case, my app on GAE is an API which my front end (hosted elsewhere) is consuming.
Someone needs to rethink their architecture.