In this kind of debate, to people refer to tabs as actually entering the tab character, or to the use of tabs involving immediate replacement with a specified number of spaces?
For instance vscode allows the usage of the tab butting to enter 2 or 4 spaces when pressed, would that be considered tab or spaces?
Definitely is a misconception. The video posted by another commentor (Silicon Valley clip) implies spaces is manually pressing space 4-8 times. Which we should all be able to agree is madness :)