> The default reason some feature doesn't exist is simply because no one bothered to make it. Maybe they don't think there's a big demand from their users to disable shorts completely.

My guess is they know exactly what users are doing with the app and website, and know that people use shorts more often than we think.

This is one of their prime products, and they're Google, the biggest surveillance company on the planet. Of course they know how users interact with their service.