It’s like that so people can’t game the system and just give each other 50 claps every time for everything like some do.
Here’s another factor, and I’m pretty sure I read this from Medium when the claps were first rolled out. The algorithm measures each member separately, and allocates funds based on average clapping for the member, not numerical claps. So if I clap for your story 20 times, and another story 30 times, the difference is what the algorithm looks at. So basically, someone who always claps 50 times might as well always clap once, because the algorithm is count 50 as the norm, as that member’s “1.” Someone who always claps 10 times can make a big difference for somebody by throwing in the occasional 50. This explains why a story with shit tons of claps can earn less than expected. The people who clapped like crazy for your story clapped the same for everybody else’s story, too. There is no “1 clap = 1 penny” formula out there. It’s an engine with a thousand moving parts.
