My guess? Probably a mix of Google Evil (true), and not understanding you are talking about Pixels.
I switched to Pixels after the whole Note 7 debacle. I even have the Note 7 t-shirt Best Buy gave out for those of us with pre-orders. It was really really shitty timing as I was traveling a lot for work and I am trying to remember if I even had a backup phone to use. I may have already traded my old phone in at the time, but had something in a drawer I could use.
Evil Corp be damned, my phone just works. It doesn't lag. The pictures are awesome. Screen is nice. I just need all of this AI assistant shit to go away. I got it to STFU about it at least and my phone can go back to being a phone. Gemini can rot.