Hashtags do not replace groups.
No one moderates them. They’re easy to hijack and spam. And there’s simply no permanence to them.
Which is why, if you actually want to discuss something, it’s better to tag a group. For example, if you want to be part of an actual PC gaming community on the Fediverse, it’s better to tag @pcgaming@lemmy.ca than #pcgaming.
This needs to be common knowledge because people new to the Fediverse do not know about groups. Hell, I’d say people who have had Mastodon accounts for years still don’t know. And that’s a shame.
@atomicpoet I had found this in the beginning, used it for a few days and unfollowed everything in frustration. At least in Mastodon it is way, way too spammy as you get every single reply. I don’t really get why you would want this, hashtags make more sense for the microblogging idea to me and once I knew you could follow them instead things got a lot better for me here.