I had that thought, until the focus went to phones available in eu/asia, with One+, Nothing, POCO being mentioned, and none of those are brands targeted at average users only caring about a phone that basically works with no fuss.

Even Xiaomi feels a bit borderline, they have very affordable and mass targeted phones, but anyone not caring that much would go no wrong with a Samsung, probably discounted at the same price as the equivalent Xiaomi phone.

The main beef against the Pixel phones seems to be that friend's story about the back getting hot sometimes, which is valid, but anecdotal to say the least.