Re:Diamond Prices Are in Free Fall in One Key Corner of the ...
by OJFord on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @07:40PM
(#37399351)
They're not though, because they are actually a different thing (plastic) and you can tell that from some distance.
Lab-grown diamonds are the same thing as natural, the same material, and can be produced to a higher specification for the same cost as finding (due to scarcity, labour, etc.) an objectively worse stone. (Or equivalently a given spec can be manufactured cheaper than it can be found.)
The correct flower analogy would be growing nicely coloured varieties in a nursery vs. hunting for those random mutations in the wild.
Lab-grown diamonds are the same thing as natural, the same material, and can be produced to a higher specification for the same cost as finding (due to scarcity, labour, etc.) an objectively worse stone. (Or equivalently a given spec can be manufactured cheaper than it can be found.)
The correct flower analogy would be growing nicely coloured varieties in a nursery vs. hunting for those random mutations in the wild.
(Nobody does the latter!)