Things?$filter=name lt 'thing 1' is encoded like Things%3F%24filter%3Dname%20lt%20%27thing+1%27
That results on querying 'thing+1' in the database, when we are expecting 'thing 1'.
According to mdn:
For application/x-www-form-urlencoded (POST), spaces are to be replaced by '+', so one may wish to follow a encodeURIComponent replacement with an additional replacement of "%20" with "+".
A request like:
Things?$filter=name lt 'thing 1'
is encoded likeThings%3F%24filter%3Dname%20lt%20%27thing+1%27
That results on querying 'thing+1' in the database, when we are expecting 'thing 1'. According to mdn: