Natural diamonds are really cheap. You can go online right now and buy rough diamonds for $3.50/carat. Diamonds that you would want to put into a ring are much rarer and diamonds have all the qualities that jewelry enthusiasts want are rarer than that.

We need to start thinking about jewelry like hi-fi audio. If you just want to listen to good music then lord knows you don't need a $10k setup. You hit diminishing returns really fast and your untrained eye isn't gonna be able to tell the difference between a $500, $2,000, and $10,000 diamond -- they will all be pretty. But that doesn't mean that there aren't people who do notice and do care.