Maybe it is just that.

Still, I don't like trusting things. I like to verify. And I can't. Being a skeptic I'm going to have the other hypothesis.

I went to The Plaza today (the mall in Palmerston North) and tried to get a case for my Google Pixel 8. There are no less than 3 (I think actually 5) shops in the mall that pretty much only sell cases ... or maybe do phone repairs too, or also have stickers and glitter, or whatever but mostly they sell mobile phone cases. None of them had any cases for this phone. None of the major phone providers (Spark, 2degrees, One) sell the Google Pixel phones.. Only Spark says they can support it on the air, the other ones do not list it as a supported phone on their network. I had to buy it online. Is it just NZ where this phone is rare? I get the impression that it's not a common phone anywhere. Checking online, they have 4.6% of the US market, far more than the NZ market, but I guess that is up from 3.6% two years ago.