Another aspect of this change that interested me was how recommends were converted to claps. The amount of claps someone can give an article is 0–50. The number of recommends you could have given was 0–1.
It was interesting, then, that they decided to convert 1 recommend to 1 clap. The absolute minimum on the new scale.
I found this relevant as a fairly unknown writer without a large audience. My “best performing” article was from a few years back which received a very modest 75 recommends. Far and away my best though. With the switch, it now has 75 claps. Less than what 2 fans could have given me. So, what was a much more significant (though again, modest compared to others) achievement before is more or less useless now.
I had convinced 75 people it was a good read before. Now, it looks like I convinced 2, maybe 3. Something that seemed somewhat reasonably well-liked before seems fairly pathetic now.
