How Valuable Is Content On The Internet

Clicks and view counts on the internet measure attention, but they cannot measure the value of content to the person consuming it. Worthless clickbait might appear more valuable than an article worth your full attention.

To fix this, Medium introduced a "clap," a variable measure of value that signals not just desire, but the level of value a piece of content delivers to its reader. It's the source of data that was not possible to get anywhere else.