Thought hashtags were dead weight until 9 tags got my reel 40k views

I always figured hashtags were a waste of time, just spammy leftovers from 2015 that did nothing for reach. Last month I posted a cooking clip with 3 generic tags and it died at 800 views, so out of spite I tried again with 9 tags pulled from smaller niche accounts in my city. Same style of video, posted 4 days later, and it hit 40k views with most of the traffic coming from search, not the feed. What changed my mind was seeing the tags actually put me in front of people browsing those topics, not just my followers. I still don't get why 9 worked when 3 flopped, maybe it's just covering more small buckets instead of a few big ones. Anyone else messed with tag count and seen a real jump, or did I just get lucky on this one post?