Wave's failure and that of Google+ might have been the turning point for Google, never really to return to its former glory.
Consider if they had focused on it instead of Android. Maybe we would still have Windows phones. Such are the tides of time. I think their present, malignant glory eclipses it financially but never will romantically.
Wave was a cool tech demo, and I was excited to see it. The teaser video was solid marketing. Me and my lab mates couldn’t figure out what use case it solved though.
Google+ was pure garbage being shoved down our throats. That was a huuuge signal that Google had changed.