As far as how much a writer gets, claps don’t matter. They used to, but now it’s all based on “reader engagement” meaning that reading and hate-reading are equivalent as it pertains to writer compensation. The change was instituted in December 2019 IIRC and from the way some writers carried on you would have thought the world had ended, which I suppose it had if your chief vehicle is haiku, unless you crank out an awful lot of them. The issuance of transition payments covering 7 days or something like that made the reception of the new regime that much worse in that many writers assumed that their compensation had just been reduced by 75% — a big deal if you depend on Medium to pay any bills. If I depended on my Medium income for anything beyond covering my monthly membership fee I’d soon starve.

This writer very happily accepts whatever claps a reader gives. It’s a form of recognition and I’m a recognition junkie. For my own part I never give less than 10 unless I want to damn with faint praise. Sometimes I’ve wished there were negative claps for writers who, say, confuse less and fewer, or amount and number as in howlers like “amount of people.”* It just curls my toenails.

By the way you don’t have click repeatedly; just hold the little clappy hands down for a brief spell.

Happy clappy!

*or who employ stock phrases such as (sorry) “first and foremost.”