The 50-clap limit is arbitrary. It could be ten just as easily. The important thing is the relativity it introduces in “liking” a piece between not a lot and infinity love.
Unfortunately, for newbies (readers and writers) they have no idea they can clap fifty times! Why would you think you could? Literally nothing else on the internet is similar.
Also, most also have no interest in literally clicking a mouse button fifty times no matter how much the like something. At work they’d think you were playing a shooter. Is that not obvious?
So a lot of people click once (as if they’re liking or hearting something on other platforms) and go on their way. Is one clap good? Better than nothing, but it’s about 2% of how much they could have liked something. Heck, they could clap ten times and that would be the equivalent of 2/5 stars in a movie review.
Simple solution: A slide bar between 0 and 50 claps. You drag it along or up or down to correspond with what most people understand to be the sliding scale of liking something (loved it, really liked it, liked it, neutral, disliked it, etc.) and every 50 degrees in between.
