Thank you so much for putting my thoughts into words! You hit the nail on the head — since I first saw the new clapping feature it looked to me not well-thought out. I have the feeling we’re all taken hostage in a big experiment by some quick idea that nobody cared/was allowed to/had time to challenge. Facebook had a similar challenge with the year-long calls for a dislike button — but instead of simply implementing and running with it, they dug deeper. And came out with Facebook Emotions — and it worked perfectly!
Another thing that I still don’t get is the new scale of measurement — are two claps twice as “good” as one? What’s the system I as a user should adhere to when clapping? And why do I as a user have to think about this at all?!
