Lab-grown rocks and fewer weddings have put a huge damper on the market. On the bright side, a big dazzler is now affordable for many
  • paequ2@lemmy.todayEnglish
    128·
    3 天前

    Lab-grown rocks

    When I was getting married a few years ago, I remember thinking fuck real diamonds lab-grown are literally the same thing. I remember getting some push back from some weirdos about how “real” diamonds are some how better or how people will think I’m a cheapskate or how people will feel bad for my wife…

    Well, fast forward a few years and literally nobody cares, thinks about, or has said anything negative about my wife’s ring. We are both 1000000% happy and satisfied with the decision to buy lab grown.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      3 天前

      I gave my wife an engagement ring with natural diamonds, but it belonged to my great-grandmother who died in the 1940s, so I didn’t feel that there was an ethical issue.

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.netEnglish
      2·
      3 天前

      I’ve unfortunately lost my wedding ring in palladium. My wife is planning to offer me a new one but this time I want a steel ring made by a local jeweler.

      Not because it is cheaper but because I am using my money in the right place.

      Precious metal/stones is a social flex saying “Look ! I can afford the labor of X African slaves that have worked in the mine to extract this mineral” (plus the ecological impact of mining)

      I’d rather spend money to buy the labor of a local artisan than buy African slave labor through a myriad of intermediaries

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      591·
      3 天前

      We said fuck diamonds entirely, even lab grown, and even had to go out of our way to find something that didnt have diamonds on it somehow

    • idunnololz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 天前

      Same. My SO’s ring looks great and easily looks 20 to 50x what it actually costs. We get to spend the savings on a honey moon with no compromises.

    • Obelix@feddit.orgEnglish
      13·
      3 天前

      We decided on some cheap silver rings. We really didn’t want to carry around something extremely valuable everywhere. Go swimming and lose 5000€ in the lake? Do some yard work and lose your diamond ring there? Getting mugged and the robber is getting something really expensive? No, thank you.

      Expensive wedding rings & jewelery did make sense in the past when women were not allowed their own money, bank accounts etc. as a way to escape an abusive husband. Pawn your expensive wedding ring, get cash for the getaway. But we’re not living in the 50s, my wife has her own bank account, is earning her own money, so no need for something like that.

      • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 天前

        We decided on some cheap silver rings. We really didn’t want to carry around something extremely valuable everywhere. Go swimming and lose 5000€ in the lake? Do some yard work and lose your diamond ring there? Getting mugged and the robber is getting something really expensive? No, thank you.

        Yeah, on a similar note it is really nice to finally have a new phone, but I’ll miss the fact that losing my old phone would only set me back $50.

      • jaxxed@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 天前

        We did the same. Some silver bands from a local artist.

        Paid off when one was lost. The artist was still available for a new order.

  • a9cx34udP4ZZ0@lemmy.world
    English
    44·
    2 天前

    Bottom falls out on commodity made artifically rare through imperailism and corruption. Is this the part where I’m supposed to feel bad for De Beers?

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      2 天前

      To be fair, diamonds are indeed rare on earth. But what made diamond price come crashing is because we now managed to synthesise the diamonds. These “fake” diamonds flooded the market. This is good news so that we don’t have to rely on exploitative extraction of the mineral.

      • TurtleSoup@lemmy.zipEnglish
        11·
        2 天前

        Also because newer generations just aren’t sold on diamonds being a luxury item anymore. Your average Joe just isn’t paying their rent or more on a diamond engagement/wedding ring like they used to because, well, that’s their rent payment or mortgage for something that’s gonna lose value the second they walk out of the store.

      • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        2 天前

        They’re not especially rare, not even gem-quality ones. For several generations, almost every married woman in a western country had a diamond on her finger of some size. They found plenty of them to serve that market. The mines created artificial scarcity by colluding together.

        If lab grown had never happened, diamond mines might not have been able to serve industrial customers. Industrial customers don’t care how it looks as long as it cuts, and so lab grown has been good enough for decades. Thus, you can get a two-pack 4.5 inch diamond angle grinder wheel at Home Depot for around twenty bucks.

    • sunbytes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 天前

      The free market manages to solve a problem.

      I wonder how much money it’s going to cost the diamond lobby to un-solve it.

  • Loce@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    3 天前

    You know, it must be that food and rent are a bit higher priority than the pressure stones… especially when more and more people cant afford those… food and rent i mean.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    181·
    3 天前

    All essentials are going up but at least some useless luxury items are coming down.

    • Wogi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      3 天前

      The rock is quite useful as an industrial tool. It’s when you cut it in to a fancy shape and wear it that it’s pretty useless.

      We use diamonds to test the hardness of materials, grind really hard things smaller, orient and locate specialized cutting tools, and cut through really hard things. Hell we sell garnet by the barrel to help cut through regular materials. Orderly carbon or, in many cases orderly aluminum oxide, is something we need a lot of. The price going down on those is actually good for manufacturing.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 天前

        But the industrial rocks are 90% manmade, the stonesetter diamonds were mined with slave labour or close to it, and people probably died for them.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        2 天前

        I own twns of thousands of diamonds. most of them are embedded in metal plates and I use them to sharpen chisels. A few are on little wheels I use to cut steel.

    • sploosh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      40·
      3 天前

      There’s nothing wrong with orderly carbon. There’s more than a few things wrong with Debeers

      • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 天前

        yeah, like the heat conduction thing is super cool, and the ability to scratch literally anything, while not particularly useful, is still pretty neat

        I bet once diamonds get cheap enough CPU manufacturers will start using them as heat spreaders on their high end chips

        • Bronzebeard@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          2 天前

          Scratching things is super useful. We have so many tools based on exactly that principle

          • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 天前

            Yes, there just isn’t all that much use I would get from it personally, and I think diamond tools are already not all that expensive.

    • TehWorld@lemmy.worldEnglish
      482·
      3 天前

      I disagree. They ARE pretty. Just not as pretty as a rose or a sunset and yeah best used as industrial tooling.

      • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
        24·
        3 天前

        I would rate them above roses personally. Below a good sunset though; nearly nothing manmade beats those

        • froh42@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          3 天前

          Good sunsets are frequently man-made too, the most beautiful red glowing ones own their look to dust - air pollution.

        • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 天前

          Yes, but you can’t take a good sunset and put it somewhere where you can look at it whenever. Pictures don’t really convey the full experience.

        • TehWorld@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          3 天前

          Pedantry because funny: Diamonds and Roses aren’t man made either. On a more serious note, some things aren’t beautiful because they last but because they are fleeting.

          • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 天前

            Diamonds and Roses aren’t man made either.

            Yeah, but have you seen an unprocessed diamond? They don’t look all that interesting, especially when compared with other natural crystals. It certainly isn’t what most people think of when they picture a diamond.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            3 天前

            Any rose you buy at a florist or other store is the product of centuries of selective breeding by horticulturists. So they are, in that sense, man-made. And now they’re getting into genetic modification.

            In fact, if you bought someone a dozen wild roses, they might be disappointed.

            Really, virtually anything plant-related you can buy in a store is a human creation at least in part. We don’t think of flowers we tend to grow and buy as domesticated, but they are.

          • Ajen@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            4·
            3 天前

            Lots of diamonds are man made, and most people can’t tell them apart from natural diamonds, especially without a microscope.

            • TehWorld@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              3 天前

              True. My wife specifically requested a Moissanite. Most engagement rings are (sadly) still natural diamond.

    • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      3 天前

      The same can be said for precious metals as well except precious metals can’t be manufactured. Their natural scarcity gives them some value beyond their utility.

      Diamonds however are not scarce.