Well, the game gets content updates every 3 months. Your full physical release is gonna be useless after a season. There's even a requirement to connect to Xbox live for full bedrock features
That is beside the point. Pretty much every game on a cartridge gets an update, which contains bug fixes, or a combination of that with additional contents. DLC is a thing as well. The point of physical media here is to make it possible to access the game period, with or without internet, regardless of the inevitable end of the digital store front, etc.. Game updates obviously are their own issue, but access to a game in any capacity is better than no access at all. The only other alternative is piracy, and that's not an option for everyone out there. The full physical releases may not always be updated with the latest contents, but they don't need to necessarily be for physical media to matter. Of course, It would always be better and way more ideal if the latest / last versions were crammed into a cartridge (some physical releases are actually handled this way, acting as revision releases), but something is better than nothing. You can still play Minecraft in this case offline, without using a Nintendo and Microsoft account, and no online membership needed. The only loss is the lack of multiplayer, but that's Nintendo's fault, not Microsoft's in this case. Achievements, the marketplace, and realms, are not necessary in my opinion, you can play singleplayer just fine without those three things. I can buy the Nintendo Switch version of the same game, and be able to play whatever version it shipped with. Is it the latest build? Probably not. If the internet goes down, the store front dies, and I'm unable to hack the model of Switch without directly modifying the hardware, just to play a pirated version, then the physical cartridge shipped with whatever version is ideal. It is still some form of the experience, even if it's not the latest bleeding version. If this is your angle to defend digital software, then I hope you realize that even the latest version of that isn't persistent, unless you had purchased the software, accessing it prior to the shutdowns. Which means if you didn't, your access is restricted to solely piracy. You have no choice but to hack a system, or emulate.
