That’s precisely what I am saying. Multiplication/division should be performed left to right as encountered in a problem.
The first expression contains an ‘implicit’ multiplication. As noted above, there are teachers and even some numeric solvers that perform the implicit multiplication before explicit multiplication/division.
A rule is only absolute if everybody agrees on it. There’s sufficient argument over the application of implicit multiplication that there is a de facto ambiguity.
You can militantly insist one particularly way is correct, but that’s not going to change anybody’s mind or force the “mathematical community” (whatever that is) to accept it.
Or, what Indistinguishable just posted.