> Every single shorted stock, was purchased by someone else who is taking the long side of the trade.

> So there's as many people betting the stock will go up.

The first sentence is a useful reminder, but second has a error: A single person can have multiple bets, and not all bets are the same volume.

For example, Alice has a budget of $10 and believes the coin-flip will land Heads. Alice makes a $5 wager with Bob and a $3 wager with Carol and a $2 wager with Dan. The equilibrium is in money, rather than opinion-havers.

You're absolutely correct, and I should have been more precise. The value is always identical, but the number of participants, need not be the same for each position. Mea culpa.