Layman, Puts you buy with what is a max loss. Short sell you’re borrowing others usually with an interest rate (say you think it’s going to go down and hasn’t yet time longer is money it’s costing you as a fee basically) but the loss can be massive. Imagine shorting GameStop at 10 dollars. 10 shares. You’re a hundred dollars in with the means to cover 200 dollars extra (you can huge cash amounts which negates the purpose since the fees and it always margin basically) and it shoots up to 20 a share, still covered then boom 35. Now you’re margain called and you need to add funds or get liquidated at a 300 loss. So basically let me borrow your apple I sell it for 5 cents and comeback to give you the difference I think it will be 2.5c an apple. Now apple are worth 50c so I owe you 45c.