I have a confession, I was a little tight for cash when I got my google wave invite. I invited two friends then noticed what they where going for on ebay. I sold 6 invites at $25 a piece.

I listed them at 9:00 AM EST and they all sold in the hour between 2:30 PM and 3:30 PM. From what I can tell they went for a high price when others weren't selling because I marked them as international.

I'm not surprised... I was one of the first to get a GMail account, and I remember making about 100$ on ebay. I would have made a lot more if I had sold my invites earlier though :/.

Why doesn't google just sell them?

Some (cynical) possibilities:

1. To sell invites would be "unGOOGlich"; that is, it may hurt Google's perceived "do no evil"/not-just-in-it-for-the-money/faux altruism brand.

2. Scarcity marketing increases demand for an already sought-after item.

After today, maybe not so healthy.

I bought 8 for $200, resold two for $40 apiece, and sold the rest to friends at cost, because ebay started pulling my auctions.