PostEaseHashtags carry less weight than they used to, on most platforms
Several platforms have shifted their discovery systems away from relying heavily on hashtags, toward broader content-understanding and engagement-based recommendation. That shift means a hashtag strategy that treats tags as the primary discovery mechanism is chasing something less effective than it once was. Tags are rarely irrelevant either, just less central.
A small number of specific tags beats a long generic list
A caption padded with a large number of broad, high-volume tags tends to underperform a smaller number of specific, relevant ones. A specific tag reaches a smaller but more interested audience searching or following that exact topic. A broad, high-volume tag is buried among an enormous amount of unrelated content.
Research means checking what a tag returns, not guessing
The most reliable way to judge whether a hashtag is worth using is looking at what content currently ranks under it. Is that content similar to what you're posting? Does it look recent and active? A tag that returns unrelated or stale content is not a good match, however popular the tag itself sounds.