I naively searched in the mobile app settings for a way to turn off shorts, before realising there will not be one.

You can't turn it off entirely, but if you keep using "show less shorts" from the 3 dot menu it eventually goes away, mostly...

It comes back. It acts like it executed shortiness+=1 every day, and "show fewer shorts" does shortiness-=10 or thereabouts. The shorts position on the home screen is based on this hidden shortiness variable. It always bubbles back to the top unless you keep pressing "show fewer shorts" whenever you see it.

Strange, for me it only comes back up if I get baited into clicking on any short (or have one linked to me)

You can use NewPipe or YouTube ReVanced, or set up a “child” account and disable Shorts in the parental restrictions settings.

If you're on android it's better to just use revanced or something

I use an addon for firefox called "Hide shorts for Youtube™". Works just fine.

I use this add-on to redirect shorts to the regular video URL. I can still watch them but I don't get the infinite scroll and algorithm pigeon-holing.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/youtube-short...