I get it, but it's essentially Google wanting to have their cake (marketing to customers: "It's a Google phone! Pure Google all the way, baby!") and eat it, too

I get it, but it's essentially Google wanting to have their cake (marketing to customers: "It's a Google phone! Pure Google all the way, baby!") and eat it, too (product support: "Uhhh, yeah, we uh, we don't make this thing, it's all Huawei, we're just a humble retailer."). I agree that it's absolutely bad for Google's image to operate this way, as you can see from the comments in this thread. People aren't mad at the OEMs Google paid to manufacture their devices, they're mad at Google.