Although they might have more leverage for full barre chords, shorter fingers won’t have as much span across the frets, particularly on the Bass guitar, which has its frets further apart (especially at the bottom of its neck.) As much as it makes good practise to span your fingers out across as many frets (yes that’s 4), if the stretch is so far that you can’t get enough force behind a finger to push down on the fret, then there’s no harm in moving the hand up or down a little to reach these notes. In the animation this is demonstrated between the 1st and 4th frets of a Bass guitar using the 1st and 4th fingers.