Funny that you use diamonds as an example, when the diamond market is one of the most rigged institutions on the planet.
Your jeweler is always gouging you when you buy diamonds.
Just because a cartel exists somewhere in the supply chain doesn't mean I have to participate in the transaction or my perceived value of it is artificially inflated. The two caret ring was just hypothetical, but there are plenty men who value those rings more than the asking price, and their wives appreciate that. (at least the sensible ones do)
It's less the jeweler and more his suppliers.
Also foolish to forget that time is money, you pay knowledge workers for the time they spent studying. You too can "save" $10,000 by doing security yourself, but only if you spend several years training and understanding the domain.
Where can one buy security for $10,000 anyway? I'm not mentally disabled and have spent many weekends learning about info security. What are they even talking about?
>Because I know that there's a fixed quantity of available diamonds
Meanwhile...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_vapor_deposition_of_di...
How do I know that my jeweler isn't gouging me on my fiancee's 2 caret diamond ring? Because I know that there's a fixed quantity of available diamonds, and almost everyone would buy them at a given price. And if I need to verify that, I can go to the jeweler down the street. Everyone would buy security consulting at a given price, but that quantity is even more limited than 2 caret diamonds.
Why is my house worth a third less than what it was 3 years ago? Because there's at least a third fewer potential buyers than there was when I bought it. I wasn't "price gouged" or fooled in either instance.
Whitehats specialize in security and it frees up our time to specialize and produce excess value for others. It's not a conspiracy. If Steve Jobs and LeBron James aren't tricking people into giving them money, neither are whitehats. It's the free market and, believe it or not, it produces wealth.