Number of bytes would apply in cases - like the len() of a python3 bytes or python str object, or something like C's strlen function - where you're not operatin

Number of bytes would apply in cases - like the len() of a python3 bytes or python str object, or something like C's strlen function - where you're not operating on characters in the first place. It's trivial precisely because there is no encoding. "\xC4\xAC" is two bytes regardless of whether you interpret it as [latin capital i + breve] or [hangul gyeoh] or [latin capital a + umlaut][not sign] ("Ĭ" / "곃" / "Ĭ").