Something very interesting to note is that 35 people clapped for this post but only 21 have responded.
I can attest to it working as well, last month was my best ever month on Medium. I published equal to my most stories in a month, but I commented over 270 times. I had started the month before as well, but in total I only have about 800 comments on Medium, so I increased that a lot last month. My earnings were almost three times any previous month on Medium.