Note that on global Pixels it isn't hard to enable, either via root or flashing Japanese variants of the factory images.

This is such a Hacker News comment.

Yes I'm not claiming it's ideal, it'd be nice not to worry about such things as a tourist, it can't be that hard or expensive for Google to just let everyone use the feature.

But at least if you move to Japan, you can essentially get a Japanese flavored Pixel at the small cost of a factory unlock/relock.

The iPhone is really big in Japan (it's one of the few countries where it has a higher market share than in the US) which probably makes it more worthwhile for Apple

That doesn't make any sense. It's supported on local phones for both iOS and Android. What iOS does that's special is enable FeliCa for all regions globally. It only affects people from outside Japan traveling there.¹

Since it's not free for them, I assume they determined the amount of people in their key demographic that visit Japan was worth providing a stellar experience. Considering 2.7 million Americans visited last year, it was probably a bet that's paying off.

¹ Or, incidentally, people who live there but purchase phones overseas to avoid an obnoxious camera shutter sound forced on at all times.

I do wonder who it is that has all of these android phones in the US (nearly 40% by the statistics). In my extended friend group only one person other than me uses an Android phone.

> I do wonder who it is that has all of these android phones in the US (nearly 40% by the statistics).

I'm guessing it's largely the working class and undocumented immigrants. And probably lots of burner phones?

People who can't afford to spend $599 on a phone. Or those who can afford it but can send picture messages all the same on a phone that costs hundreds less.

Android is overwhelmingly preferred by working-class people, in my experience. The phones are simply cheaper.

Or more powerful and more expensive, such as every single foldable phone on the market, including my Oppo Find N5.

I think it's more like difference in commitment to product and sales model between Apple and every other phone manufacturers. Apple really commits deeply into making singular globally unified phones and rejecting pressures to make carrier branded bastard children of iPhone. None of Android phone manufacturers are as committed - even Google - and so unnecessary features gets removed from non-Japanese phones, even the same models were sold globally as well as in Japan(not always the case as Japanese businesspeople generally hate more to think about exports than about lost opportunities and there had historically been obscenely abundant supply of Japan-only electronics).

It's surprising that it can be added back on Pixels, I thought it would use something like factory generated certificates.

It's probably more of a licensing fee thing, just editing the SKU in the deviceinfo partition of a global Pixel suffices to enable Osaifu Keitai. It's the same hardware everywhere, only licensing restrictions.