You're confusing the product with the rollout / marketing. Wave obviously needed network. So what was the point of limited invites.

Imagine this. I want to have a group chat - a la Slack - and 9 team members are able and one is not. Guess that happened? No Wave use.

The point is simple. The history of stupidity, shite customer service and abandoment is there...Google is not - yet? - a world class product company. Innovation is not the issue. Execution is.