I'm amazed how large this (still small) subset of people is that suddenly can't understand the meaning of the word "less" when used for countable nouns. Strangely I've never encountered one in person, only on reddit and hackernews, and in fiction.
It seems such a strange place to suddenly misunderstand what seems to be a relatively straightforward and simple use of the word.
It means "a smaller quanitity of", just the same as it does when used for uncountable nouns, and as far as I can think of, it was very clear in that context with no conflict or ambiguity.
