Claps might not directly relate to earning, but they make the writer look more popular among new writers. I found some articles with 22k claps and not a single comment. If you check the people who clapped, they seem to be bots. The long-form article is excellent, but you have to be cautious about the group of audience and communities you are connecting with. I had both long and short format articles, and some are 11 minutes read that met an excellent success, but on average, most people here seem to prefer 4 to 6 of read time unless it is a fully detailed article