Oh, they absolutely are. And it would be fine if they were clear about it(which they aren't). You know, "this is our first market, we are currently in the process of negotiating/developing the feature for other regions, stay tuned" is perfectly understandable for me.
I'm aware many people would freak out about something like that but as far as their hardware products, they are not aimed at the marketing-manager-with-a-macbook-pro-on-the-front-table-at-Starbucks types. In 99.999% of all cases, those people wouldn't care about a Pixel or it's existence. And in reality the only people who would make a deal out of it. I'm 100% certain that the average Pixel user would be perfectly fine with it.
The Pixels are absolutely brilliant products and I am in love with mine, even if it's almost 2 years old now. But imagine my reaction when I opened Google play and I saw the text "This app is incompatible with all of your devices." regarding Android pay... On a brand new Pixel? A text which is still there mind you. Their support was very open about it and they did say it's a regional restriction and nothing to do with the phone itself but still... This is just one example but there are plenty of others on the list.