I think what bewilders me about all these posts is what people are measuring.

The only thing that matters is the number of minutes you are read. People who clap for you often clap for you in the hope that you wlll clap back. You can see on the stats that what you're written hasn't been read. Claps are meaningless. Views are meaningless. All a view means is that Medium put your article in front of comeone, but the someone didn't not click on your article to read it.