But it wasn't really a fair system since it was so easy for some folks to escalate using clap for clap deals.

I'm not sure why readers should earn some of the stories value when they had no hand in writing it. Even if they share the story, that doesn't help us out in terms of our earnings since we only get paid for readers who are paying members. So they share the story a bunch of times which takes no effort on their part just to up their earnings and it's taken from our earnings when we put in all the effort?

There will also again be the issue of writer's success being a function of the size of their social network not their writing skill or ability to tell a story that readers really want to read.

The bottom line is when a story is great and resonates with readers it will be shared. Paying people to do so is just another system that falsely escalates stats and story success has nothing to do with quality or value.