That's not a trend. It is the subject of the thread.

Here's my story.

Bought Nexus 5. Smashed screen in go-kart accident. Called Google to ask about repair; they offered to replace it for free. I still have that phone as a backup.

Bought Nexus 6p. Then bought another for wife. Both worked fine; we gave them to family members after two years.

Now have Pixel, Pixel XL for wife, and Pixel for daughter. They've all worked fine. Daughter got small scratch on screen, bought screen protector after that, no incidents since.

Standard disclosure: I work at Google. These experiences were all with normal retail devices, purchased with own money at full price, using personal Gmail accounts, with no special treatment as a Google employee.

My Nexus 5, purchased directly from google, stopped charging; I think something wore on the connector. I went through 7 or 8 cables and, if you held them just right, the phone would charge. Briefly. Support was a nightmare to deal with, including them insisting that I install the latest point update of the OS which would somehow magically cure hardware damage. On a phone that I couldn't charge. And that they wouldn't help with at all until I installed the stupid OS update.

Apple just doesn't treat customers like that. IME obviously.

I've had 5 android phones and never called anyone for any issues, although I have only bought Samsung and HTC.

Why Google ever did a licensing deal with Huawei is beyond me. They are controlled by the same Chinese government that won't allow Google to operate in their borders.

Bought an HTC Hero. Used it two years with no issues, besides lack of storage. With apps getting larger and storage issues cleared up with newer hardware, I needed an upgrade.

Bought a Galaxy Nexus. Used it for two years without issues. Would've continued with it for longer, but I was leaving Sprint.

Bought a Nexus 5. Used it for two years, with minor issues concerning wifi signal strength and wireless charging. The phone still works, and I keep it as a spare, but the wifi issues were especially annoying.

I've had an HTC One A9 for a year so far. No issues, aside from it being larger than I'd really like. I don't plan to replace it until I have a very good reason. Also have an iPhone 6 from work. It's nice, but harder to tinker with, which I think has always been Apple devices' shortcoming.