A bit paradoxal but it looks that all central platform (twitter, reddit, facebook…) are helping the spread of Fediverse. Recently we saw the impact with Twitter on Mastodon, myself I’ve discovered Lemmy even if I wasn’t a reddit user. And before that Facebook first spread friendica and diaspora. It looks next step will be around Youtube where Google try to lock more and more its user.
Mastodon does allow following (and pinning) hashtags. It’s a relatively new feature, was added in version 4 at the end of last year. Totally OK to prefer Lemmy though, there is no wrong way to use the Fediverse.
I think that what is scary here is the steep learning curve. For people who has already developed habits/social circles on other platforms, it’s mighty confusing. For new comers, with no expectations it’s much easier.
Much like learning a new language.