For a lot of people, any non-normal state == bricked. Especially now, when the genius bar isn't open.
And yes, there's a difference between a soft brick and a hard brick, and it depends on your ability to repair.
Getting my phone stuck in a bootloop is usually a soft brick, but my Pixel went into one a few years ago for no apparent reason (likely mobo failure) and that was beyond my capacity to repair or diagnose, so it's bricked.
It is the sort of nonsense we have to put up with when people start abusing a well-established term to get attention rather than to convey information -- though, in this case, it seems some machines really have been bricked.
To be sure, a soft brick is a pile of clay or mud, not a brick at all. It has neither the form or function of a brick, and therefore is the perfect analogy to this vociferous misnomer.
In my experience people call those sorts of things broken or not working, rather than (soft or hard) bricked. So people would say things like "the power went out in my house and soft bricked my TV until the power company turned it back on"? It's interesting how language evolves.
That doesn't seem to align with where you said that any non-normal state is bricked, and that the difference between soft and hard bricked is your ability to repair it.
And yes, there's a difference between a soft brick and a hard brick, and it depends on your ability to repair.
Getting my phone stuck in a bootloop is usually a soft brick, but my Pixel went into one a few years ago for no apparent reason (likely mobo failure) and that was beyond my capacity to repair or diagnose, so it's bricked.