Medium plans to start letting more and more authors publish paywalled articles. And to determine how they get paid, the blogging platform has selected a fairly unorthodox method: claps, which are, basically, Medium’s equivalent of a Like.

A couple weeks ago, Medium replaced its “recommend” feature — a little heart button at the end of each article — with a “clap” button that you can click as many times as you want (much like how Periscope lets you send broadcasters an infinite number of hearts). The site wants people to send authors claps to show how much they enjoy reading each article.

Now, those claps are actually going to mean something. Medium pays authors by dividing up every individual…

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