They were never really intended to "win" because Google values their partnerships with other phone mfgs. They spend way less on marketing the Pixels and they really exist just to keep mfgs honest and to showcase what Android can/should do when it's not inundated with bloatware and crappy firmware/drivers. Meanwhile, Samsung is trying to sell you a Tizen dishwasher with dedicated Bixby buttons that sells data to marketing agencies and will irreparably break within a few years.

They want to win. They just can't due to incompetence. If it were just to showcase what Android can be, they would have just kept the cheaper Android One or Nexus programs instead of going full Pixel.