Then the lender should not lend out their shares, no? There are obviously problems with who actually has access to short stocks, but in theory they are a reaso

Then the lender should not lend out their shares, no? There are obviously problems with who actually has access to short stocks, but in theory they are a reasonable counterbalance: If you believe in the stock, buy it, if you don’t believe in it sell it. And if you don’t currently own any shares, you can borrow shares from the people who believe in the stock, sell them now and cash out when/if the stock goes down. The information imbalance is fundamentally a part of how we operate our markets, since information literally can’t instantly be distributed to everyone (regardless of what faith-based “economists” try to convince people to believe about the efficient market gospel)