Because their logo is on the device. If it’s so inconsequential as to not care about quality, then perhaps they shouldn’t bother.
They’re up against Apple. Criticize all you want, but Apple cares about customer experience and quality. Pixel is supposed to be representing their competing operating system. It should be a quality product, even if volume is low. They should accept it as a loss leader if they have to.
This is the same company that was all in on bringing high speed internet to cities and left city streets in ruin in the process.
https://www.tellusventure.com/microtrenching-fail-drives-goo...
If the same trend is maintained, it will soon become the fourth biggest manufacturer, right after Apple, Samsung and Lenovo.
Not huge, but not serving a small niche either.
“We started out at .01% of the market and we doubled in size to .02% of the market in a year doubling in size! We saw faster growth than the leader”
It's no longer a fringe device such as Jolla in the EU market.
In other words, Apple makes more from Google in mobile than Google makes from selling Pixels.