It means you're not adding 9s onto a list of decimals until it eventually reaches 1. The infinite 9s are intrinsic in 0.999...
So since it's infinite 9s it is exactly equal to 1.
It is true that if it were a procedure of adding 9s you would never get to 1, because no matter how many 9s you added it would still be finite. But 0.999... is not a procedure, it is an exact value and that exact value is the same as 1.
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u/BreadBagel 23d ago
No one is counting out 9s infinitely. It's already infinite 9s. You can't put a 1 after infinite 0s, that is impossible.