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Claps Do Not Represent The Quality Of Your Readers
The perceived value of a clap has different value to different readers
Contrary to theatrical performances, 50 claps is not a standing ovation and 1 clap is not courtesy encouragement. No clap is not a walk-out from your article either.
I realised this recently when I got 2 similar emails from Medium about getting 10 fans from two different posts.
One had over 700 claps and earned $0.50. The other had 8 claps by 8 different persons and received about $5.60.
What does this say?
It means they were being read by different audiences. I know that because one of them were read primarily by writers who consume a lot on this platform.
The other was read by paying members who do not use this platform often.
Some are probably unaware of the 50 claps business.
What is in a clap?
A clap is a vanity metric. Just like a facebook or instagram like, it makes us feel good.
But a 1k clap does not necessarily mean that article is better quality than a 200 clap or no clap post. There are hidden gems and they were just bad timing sometimes.
