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
    • brlemworld@lemmy.worldEnglish
      55·
      6 days ago

      It’s interesting that people used to be like holy shit that person has a Rolex, it’s like $500!! Now people working at McDonald’s have a $800 Apple watch. Wild.

  • Loce@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    6 days ago

    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·
    6 days ago

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

    • TehWorld@lemmy.worldEnglish
      492·
      7 days ago

      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·
        7 days ago

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

        • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          6 days ago

          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.

        • froh42@lemmy.worldEnglish
          10·
          6 days ago

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

        • TehWorld@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          7 days ago

          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·
            6 days ago

            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
            13·
            6 days ago

            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·
            6 days ago

            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·
              6 days ago

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

    • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      7 days ago

      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.

  • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    6 days ago

    I’d like to see new uses for diamonds that take advantage of their material properties. For example, the thermal conductivity of diamonds is very high.

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
      4·
      5 days ago

      Diamond thermal paste is out there. It’s okay, but like most thermal paste (besides liquid metal, which has its own issues), it doesn’t give extraordinary results over anything else. People tend to really overthink thermal paste; it’s going to give you maybe 4 extra degrees C, and that’s already pushing it.

      Graphene is an even better thermal conductor, and heat pipes are tons better than either. There’s some work out there on enhancing heat pipes with graphene.

    • TurtleSoup@lemmy.zipEnglish
      8·
      6 days ago

      Industrial diamonds have always been on the cheap and that industry is far removed from the jewelry/gem industry, in fact a large majority of diamonds that are mined aren’t gem grade, they’re industrial grade. It’s been growing and advancing despite the jewelry/gem market starting to fall.

    • gex@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      If that was the case they would have pivoted towards selling polycule rings, they could sell N*M rings to a polycule with N males and M females

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      11·
      6 days ago

      … not really. that has been said since the 1970s, and it hasn’t happened so far (on a larger basis). i put it somewhere between nuclear fusion and antimatter spaceflight.

  • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
    41·
    6 days ago

    Artificially expensive shiny rocks less valuable than advertised.

    Fun fact, reputable pawn shops don’t pay for gemstones because they’re effectively worthless. They only pay for previous metals. If you sell a wedding ring they’ll only pay you what the metals are worth.

      • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        That’s basically what I said. But the diamond especially and other gemstone cartels (who set the prices) won’t buy from the aftermarket. Which means you can basically only sell them to 3rd parties, such as pawn shops. They then have to convince people that they should buy second hand instead of custom or “official” merch, which I imagine is a tall order.

        So without a precious metal value as a starting point, they usually won’t bother. They won’t usually buy a tungsten ring, for example, even with gemstones that cost the buyer hundreds of bucks, because it has no resale value to them. Worst comes to worst, they can always offload precious metals somewhere. The gemstones just give them an excuse to artificially inflate the resale price.

        Of course as private businesses there’s always exceptions, and maybe I’m wrong and on a nationwide scale it’s different. But I doubt it.