What’s the Good of a Short Story?

I have heard people say at Cons, “The only people reading short stories are writers” or comments like this. I’m not sure that’s true at all. But I would certainly accept that novels/novellas outsell short stories. Readers prefer long fiction to short. This is the way of things.

So I present a defence for the short story and why we all should spend more of our money on magazines and anthologies that publish them…

Short Stories are a Quicker Read

Can I put it any simpler? I can fit one or two...