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5 Reasons I Still Clap, and You Should Too
Medium no longer pays by the clap, but your applause is far from worthless
My third Medium story garnered 117 claps. They earned me a whopping $4.13.
It might not seem like much to the Medium all-stars among us; the intrepid wordsmiths whose literary swashbuckling nets them high two-figures every month. But having logged thousands of words and likes on another platform without so much as a hint of monetary reward, the direct correlation between reader appreciation and writer compensation had me hooked. I began the transition to Medium in earnest.
Not long after, Medium’s payment algorithm changed. Read time became the primary metric for payment. Claps were excluded from the formula entirely. Sure, the clap button remains, but it’s essentially decorative, like parsley on a dinner plate or pay phones on a 21st Century street corner.
Superfluous as it may be, I still use it religiously. I sacrifice a consonant before every barrage of applause.
Because listicles tend to put readers in a clapping mood, here are five reasons I continue to clap, and why I hope you will too.
