i think they are missing the point. the vision that Wolfram has for this service is probably not found in the product currently. but you can't get very advanced things if

  1. you don't actually shoot for it
  2. you don't have a solid foundation on the basics
  3. you don't have lots of people testing your service

you're not going to get something great by just aiming because the problem space for this kind of thing is massive. by shooting first you can get a better aim

i suspect the hyping for it was more for #3 than people think

from this perspective i find the data argument weird because data is easy. comparing it to Google is also weird because currently Wolfram Alpha is clearly not an internet search engine in any caliber