Now, now, I’m sure there’s a kernel of truth in there!

It is indeed a global standard!

It is the PLU code used for bananas in grocery stores. The PLU code is the code the cashier punches in before weighing the produce to get the correct price.

Sure, I might have worded myself a bit clumsily. I meant using them in a conversational way. They’re trying to say “less than 500 steps,” which is very different from “500 is larger than steps per day” in tone.

My point was just that in normal speech and writing you would say “less than 500”, which would be written “< 500” if you insisted on using the mathematical sign.

That’s not how that works, though… It is 100 % what they meant, but not at all how you use greater than/less than signs in text.