Comment by hn_submit
12 hours ago
The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks.
They wanted to differentiate between natural and lab-grown versions with the former being much more expensive. But that train has left the station since there's little to no difference in quality between the two. In fact, I once predicted there'd be huge scams where lab-grown ones would be repackaged and sold as natural ones and that would ruin customers' trust in natural diamonds.
But it now seems that isn't going to happen because customers are voting with their feet and leaving natural diamonds behind.
> there's little to no difference in quality between the two
Lab grown can be way better quality. To me it was a no-brainer considering the ethical concerns, then add in the cost difference. The only argument I've heard for natural is "I like the imperfections". Sounds like brainwashing to me. They're chemically identical
The mining industry should die
I personally find lab grown much more beautiful, in that they’re an amazing accomplishment of mankind’s science and technology. So a tree got squeezed underground until it turned into a crystal? Cool, I guess, but big deal. Humans learned enough about how matter works to recreate those conditions at industrial scale? That’s amazing!
I’d much rather wear a monument to our cleverness than a dinosaur mashed under a rock.
I've never been that interested in gemstones of any sort, but my understanding (from geology classes decades ago) is that natural diamonds on the surface of the earth result from some rather exotic processes.
First, they form deep down in the mantle around 100 miles down. The only way they get up here is through rare and violent high velocity eruption events that bring mantle material up to the surface. Most are very old, too; greater than a billion years old.
I don't recall the source of the carbon they're made from, but it's certainly not any sort of organic material like coal or dinosaurs. ;)
Or I could be totally wrong. I really have no interest in these things beyond the geology behind them and it's possible the science has uncovered new stuff since I last studied them.
Likewise, I have no idea how these synthetic diamonds are being made nowadays, but I bet that's pretty cool, too.
This is a more honest and realistic take than most on the thread. Note that either way it's the provenance behind the gem that you find attractive, much more than any instantaneous quality of it like chemistry, lack/presence of defects, etc. It's the story.
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> So a tree got squeezed underground until it turned into a crystal? Cool, I guess, but big deal.
In fairness, this is actually pretty cool
Duder the tree thing is also pretty cool - but yeah also requiring a certain level of clarity after that just feels like gacha bullshit
Which is absolutely hilarious given they spent decades "teaching" consumers about imperfections and how you can pay more to avoid them!
China. A recent look on alibaba showed a warehouse with row after row of new diamond foundrys, big ugly and cheap ones, but that has no effect on the quality of diamonds and other precsios stones they are making.
As to the mining industry, it is dying, again, China. Electric mining equipment is bieng introduced at a ferocios rate, and has contributed the largest share to Chinas astonishing 9% reduction in oil use so far this year, and an equaly astonishing reduction in CO2, in spite of an increase in overall energy use.Mad, fully fucking mad good news.
Here in Canada the copper mine in Sudbury just went all electric, and a significant amount of the steel in the electric mining equipment is carbon free through a Volvo subsidiary.
There is talk now that electrification/solar is pushing ahead so fast that we have actualy passed peak oil durring this episode in the oil wars and that oil will experience a demand collapse.
Maybe the lab enshittifiers can add imperfections!
Win, win!
Kintsugi diamonds!
My spouse lost the main stone on their ring. We were able to get another that was twice the size and WAAAY better clarity and quality for about half of the price of the first one.
It's astonishing that it has taken this long to have this kind of impact.
I knew someone who was an economist for a major jewelry company and he said ~15 years ago that the writing was on the wall that lab grown diamonds were going to decimate their sales. He wanted them to start promoting them and be the more ethical and green alternative. He did not last long there.
It's almost like he's undermining the one single thing the diamond sales industry had used to thrive for nearly a century before him.
Since the company itself didn’t mine diamonds and basically just took the market rate, his estimate was that they could achieve even better profit margins with lab-grown diamonds and would be positioned well even with eventual market competition. Given some other stories he had about the company, it sounds like they were more interested in not rocking the boat than long-term profits.
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> The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks.
Just like the luxury watches market ceased to exist when you could buy quartz watches for 10 bucks.
Well the privet to luxury was due to quartz watches taking their core business, and now Chinese superclones are in the early days of threatening their luxury business. At a certain point it’s hard to care about the residual difference.
I've heard that even experts can't tell those superclones apart from the originals anymore. Are they equally reliable?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privet
This may have been a nerd-snipe for Harry Potter fans, but I still struggle to interpolate an acccurate word there. "pivot to luxury"?
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Except in this case, the quartz watches would be better quality than the luxury watches
I'm not sure your analogy has teeth.
Mechanical watches are a luxury item when the intricate craftsmanship is highly valued, even though they're completely obsolete compared to even the simplest quartz movement.
That analogy doesn't hold for natural diamonds and the comparison therefore falls flat on its face.
The quartz watches are (way) better at time keeping.
And the rest is just a matter of paying for luxury.
The main reason the analogy doesn't really help is that the mechanical watch market absolutely cratered, and it's only being propped up by enthusiasts of cool machines.
Diamonds can't really have that. They've already scammed the general population into using slave diamonds at monopoly prices for 30 years longer than they needed to, but no one is _passionate_ about slave diamonds.
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I am sure the market will be smaller but I don't think it'll go away.
I would segment the "diamond ring" market into two: those who "feel obligated" to give/receive a diamond ring because of peer pressure, and those who genuinely find some meaning in the idea of an expensive engagement token.
Personally I thought I was in group 1 but turns out in my own life I am group two. So it never appealed to me to get a lab ring, and I know my wife would be put off by it. Meanwhile my best friend and his wife got the same size lab stone for somewhat cheaper and are happy with that. Group 1 and that's great.
So yes I agree with you the market will shrink because those who were never inherently interested in a high value stone will all go for lab - but perhaps the diminished supply of natural stones (this story) will keep the value of them higher for those who care.
Not only that, but why buy diamonds when Moissanite exists? Not as hard as diamond (by a tiny amount) but much less brittle and much more sparkle. Also even more “rare” than diamond since the only natural occurring ones are microscopic. Plus they come in colors! It took a while to talk my wife down off of the diamond industry’s hype, but she loves lab grown stones now.
If anything, much later than what I anticipated it would take. One place where one has to appreciate Chinese scale.
there goes their veblen goods...