>Starting over when you die is exactly how games worked since the arcade days

So then from a purist viewpoint, starting over from the beginning is not a defining characteristic of a rogue-like. A randomized playthrough is. which means Minecraft is a rogue-like

I think what happened is that some general qualities of early games maintained persistence to modern day gaming in the rogue-like genre (starting over, permadeath) alongside rogues unique features (randomized adventure) because they complimented each other well. So the takeaway for the genre now ends up being those more general qualities, because they've disappeared from everywhere else. they might not be specific to rogue at the time of rogues creation, but rogue-like was effectively hijacked from the beginning.

I only found rogue-likes because i was looking for games with permadeath, for example.