I very much like to clap on Medium articles. Recently, I came across an article that explained how the United States is in a state of crisis because of a lack of social safety net and too little compassion between its citizens, especially between classes of citizens. I clapped forever. Then I read an article on Ethiopia by the World Economic Forum, which was thoroughly researched and really interesting. I clapped twice.

I probably gave 70 claps to the US policy article from someone I never heard of and just two to the Ethiopian market research article by the respectable World Economic Forum. Does this reflect my reading habits? Do I really prefer political articles on the US social system over economic research on newly emerging countries? Does this mean I think the US politics article is better than the piece of market research? It’s actually the contrary.

Clapping is a good way to express your emotions. Maybe it’s even a way to tell other readers how important a certain political stand is. But it doesn’t tell what I like to read. So I was relieved to hear that Medium relies on curators to customize my newsfeed. I’m happy to pay for that. Otherwise my Medium feed will just deteriorate into a Facebook like timeline that gets the worst out of everybody and is the main reason why I deleted my Facebook account.