Yeah, the easiest option for Google/YT would be to keep Shorts to the Shorts category only/mainly, and keep the ability for users to opt out of Shorts in the platform’s players. That way, creators who want to push 5 to 30 second videos instead of 10 - 200 minutes would still get their 15 minutes seconds of fame.
But now, they aren’t just pushing Shorts on us viewers, they are forcing channels to do Shorts to get better visibility.