Medium members tend to have been around long enough that they know the extent to which they can clap. When I was a beginner on the platform, I would clap for Nicolas Cole’s, Benjamin P. Hardy’s and Zdravko Cvijetic’s 4 times thinking it was generous. A few months later, when I realized you could clap 50 times, I felt bad for clapping 4 times for them. If we change that to a scale out of 10: 4/50 < 1/10. Seems pretty bad. People who have been around long enough, and especially writers, have noticed that pattern too.

Basically, the only 20+ claps I get are from members.

It could also depend on the nature of what one is writing about too.