Please don’t worry about clapping for anything of mine, just because I’ve clapped for yours :) I’d prefer to get claps from those who read and enjoyed rather than as a courteous payback for the appreciation I’ve shown someone else. As mentioned elsewhere, clapping on Medium doesn’t give monetary value except as a means of showing others that a piece is worth their while to read, and perhaps the author is someone they’ll enjoy over time, so getting 5 claps or 10 claps from someone in response to the 50 claps I gave them just seems … limp :)

Medium has changed its modus operandi. Originally, claps and the money paid for them hinged also on read time. It would seem that in the churn of development staff, someone managed to break that functionality beyond repair.