De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds • Hacker News Board

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#41

Post by vidarh » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:00 AM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #24

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…

I seem to recall that Deep Space 9 touched in this in various ways during its run. Keep in mind that it was the first series that was fully made without Roddenberry input.

TNG, Voyager and Deep Space 9 all at various points made an issue of how the replicated food was not quite the same, without really trying to explain why (a lot of the issues with our mass produced food is exactly that: it's been modified to suit mass production, transport and storage, and often to be cost reduced as well; you'd expect most of those issues to disappear once you're using a replicator).

But you're probably right that DS9 made a bigger deal of it, especially with Sisko's dad and his restaurant featuring more than once, as well as various luxury products fetching high prices, when you might otherwise assume such high prices would quickly ensure they'd get replicated.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#42

Post by alonmower » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:00 AM UTC

49bc wrote: post #18

> De Beers said the logo won't be visible to the naked eye, but it will make the stones easily identifiable as lab-grown. They really still don’t get it still. Consumers aren’t making the same distinction for something that’s organically the same. They’re really pushing a “lab-grown is different and mined is more valuable” branding maneuver that people just aren’t buying.

I’m not buying, you’re not buying... but I think their goal is to spread enough doubt so that someone who’s not thinking as critically about this stuff gets upset when their diamond isn’t natural, or is afraid to buy anything but a natural diamond for fear of upsetting their loved one. By offering these but making them downmarket and making them seem cheaper they’re trying to suppress prices in the lab grown market to hurt competitors while attempting to protect their cash cow.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#43

Post by bdavisx » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:01 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #29

Aunche wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless if Lightbox can make their diamonds significantly cheaper than their competitors, I don't see why anyone would choose to buy a diamond with a logo on it.

De Beers has a way of monopolizing markets, so it may be difficult to find a provider of an unstamped synthetic.

No, it won't: https://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/cvd-diamond.html

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#44

Post by jacksproit » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:01 AM UTC

tehlike wrote: post #20

godzillabrennus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart move. Throw enough marketing dollars at misinformation and you can convince hordes of people to doubt facts. Case in point. Despite overwhelming evidence there are people today who still debate climate change.

The diamond love itself was a result of marketing dollars from the same company.

References https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-yo... https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bulls...

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#45

Post by 21 » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:01 AM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #25

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the staggering number of anti-GMO laws and business ad campaigns.

Educated people who hate GMO are instant signal that they don’t understand science. A good filter

Right, don't forget about people who are opposed to nuclear because of Fukushima. A good filter of people who don't understand science and how safe the nuclear industry is.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#46

Post by fratlas » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:02 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #28

fratlas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What went wrong?

No one thought it was viable considering the resources of the Da Beers cartel. In hindsight, they were right. I still have a small block of manufactured diamond I had made with impurities (as a proof of concept) in a box in my closet. With age comes wisdom.

Well you fought the good fight. Thanks for trying! I sincerely hope someone brings down Da Beers

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#47

Post by ta76567656 » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Interestingly enough, this starts to bring up questions that have previously only been super active in science fiction circles, particularly, Star Trek: If you can perfectly recreate something down to the molecular level, what actually has value? (Assuming, someday, that synthetic versions are excessively cheap, in Star Trek's case.) If you can replicate cooked food perfectly, will people still claim that "real" food…

Energy.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#48

Post by brandonjm » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #29

Aunche wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless if Lightbox can make their diamonds significantly cheaper than their competitors, I don't see why anyone would choose to buy a diamond with a logo on it.

De Beers has a way of monopolizing markets, so it may be difficult to find a provider of an unstamped synthetic.

However De Beers aren't the only ones who know how to make them, and given their apparent distaste for them they probably don't hold the patent.

Unless they intend to buy every company that starts making them or pay the patent holders a fortune, I don't see how they can effectively monopolise this like they can real diamonds.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#49

Post by 21 » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #9

tldr: De Beers is going to sell synthetic diamonds, after having vowed they wouldn't. (The already did but limited the synthetic ones to industrial applications.) Price will be ~1/10th that of naturals. My reaction: "Oh, come on, this is the most insidious monopolist on the planet. What's the catch?" I think this is it: >The new synthetic diamonds will come in pink, blue and white, and the stones will contain a tiny…

The catch is that they lost this war.

Might as well not fall into the innovators trap and position for market share in this new market.

Re: De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

#50

Post by mrob » Wed, May 30, 2018, 1:06 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #12

kregasaurusrex wrote: post #2

This is great news for scientific research- diamonds for experimental purposes are a huge market that's impeded by their artificially high cost. From a material standpoint there's a multitude of uses for them- ranging from use in CERN's particle detectors for their high optical clarity, to creating nanodiamond transport mechanisms for drugs because of their resilience to microcellular activity. By creating a mass mar…

>This is great news for scientific research- diamonds for experimental purposes are a huge market that's impeded by their artificially high cost is this really the case? AFAIK industrial diamonds are quite cheap. if anything, debeers's meddling made industrial diamonds cheaper, because it suppressed the demand from the jewelry market.

Industrial diamonds are cheap if all you want is an abrasive, but diamonds also have very high thermal conductivity, very high index of refraction (without the birefringence of silicon carbide), and could potentially be useful as semiconductors. We need big and cheap single crystal diamonds to make full use of them. A strong market for synthetic gemstone diamonds could make that happen.