I've managed high follower (100K+), high engagement (3%+) accounts with 99% distinct human followers, and I can tell you that there is no prize for likes.

It doesn't matter if your photo is getting 10 likes or 3500 likes, dozens of comments and reshares. It just becomes related to relative performance of the other post.

So you shouldn't use instagram for that.

Also, you should know that hashtags are not competitive at all for many years now, there is practically zero utility in using them at this point and you should only use them for irony or an extended caption, as they can convey your thoughts without a sentence, you're welcome. Although you can still game hashtags, but even then it is just good for balancing out attrition of followers and maintaining an account size, as opposed to actually growing the account.

Going back to the main subject, you can use the overall engagement as a resource to acquire other goods and services though, like a currency that is never spent. People, brands will associate and do things for you for free (or with you, for free) because of the dream of your engagement, analogous to why the same brands and people gamble on ads with all the large tech conglomerates, a potential well of engagement. But you are just the dealer building inventory, and dealers know not to get high on their own supply so you shouldn't either. So by realizing there is no prize offered by the platform, no achievement unlocked, not even a digital sticker, you can short circuit the dopamine hits.