Not exactly true.

Shorting is a margin play, so there is profit erosion over time.

But to the point... the net of it is, when someone calls themselves an "investor" you are expecting some form of compensation from the company for your capital, right?

But in reality, since nearly all stocks are traded on the secondary market, by folks such as us, we arent really contributing anything to the company per se with our capital, so hence why should we expect a dividend or a cash out?

So the premise is faulty of being an "investor" unless you participate in the primary market. So therefore to be frank, its a shell game where the excuse of the societal benefit is "market liquidity", so if a company wishes to raise capital through the primary market, our actions in the secondary market set a "fair price" for that capital.

Shorting is pretty much the other side of the coin. Going long may make you think you are "doing good" by supporting a company but you really aren't doing anything to assist that company unless it uses your pricing to raise more capital. So one could argue that if you believe a company's prospects are dim, then if it needs capital it can either raise debt capital or equity capital. If you increase the cost of equity (by lowering the price of said equity) then they need to look at debt etc etc etc.

The ability to short incents me, a participant, to help set that "fair price" so a company does not have unlimited access to capital if its model is flawed, and inadvertently that action causes an efficient usage of capital in the economy.

Well that's the theory anyway.

A great question. If you want to be an investor though, you may want to look at working for or with a venture capitalist. Otherwise, you are a trader/speculator, regardless of your timeframe.