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South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

wsj.com

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Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#61

Post by kstrauser »

tedchs wrote: post #14

> Demand for engagement rings gave thousands of South Africans steady work at De Beers. Now, weak sales and lab-grown stones are taking it away. So wait, on this Labor Day weekend, it sounds like the WSJ is pro-worker, but only if they're in South Africa?

Given the infamous conditions of diamond mining, to me that reads like “won’t someone think of the jobless slaves?” Someone no longer being forced to slave away in the mines is not exactly a great loss to workers rights.

“De Beers: Because the tears of children make it sparkle!”

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#62

Post by Loughla »

jonstewart wrote: post #36

So lab grown diamonds are good and cheap enough I can finally buy my wife of 21 years a diamond ring?

Yes. And there are a ton of companies that sell just loose stones, so you can take it to a locally owned shop for the ring and setting, thereby keeping more of the money in your own community.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#63

Post by Loughla »

bookofjoe wrote: post #41
jonstewart wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully most people here getting ribeyes aren’t getting them from the same factory farms that supply McDonald’s and sell other cheap kinds of beef. A ribeye is an occasional luxury and best bought from the farmer.

>... best bought from the farmer. Perhaps you're anticipating this: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/sep/4/trump-allows...

This just opens up the door for meat that isn't inspected before sale. That's not ideal, really.

There are farmers everywhere who will sell you a cow. There are small butcher shops that will process it.

This is a solution in search of a problem, in my opinion. It will only benefit already massive corporation farms.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#64

Post by cjbgkagh »

bsoqk wrote: post #50
hn_submit wrote: post #48

The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks. They wanted to differentiate between natural and lab-grown versions with the former being much more expensive. But that train has left the station since there's little to no difference in quality between the two. In fact, I once predicted there'd be huge scams where lab-grown ones would be repackaged and sold a…

> The market for natural diamonds will cease to exist when you can buy lab-grown versions for a couple bucks. Just like the luxury watches market ceased to exist when you could buy quartz watches for 10 bucks.

Well the privet to luxury was due to quartz watches taking their core business, and now Chinese superclones are in the early days of threatening their luxury business. At a certain point it’s hard to care about the residual difference.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#65

Post by lovich »

Its not gonna be just diamonds, pretty much every gemstone is subject to the lab grown stuff.

Im into gem cutting as a hobby so its been great for me to find stuff like these cheap ruby roughs[1] but yea, its gonna fuck up anyone selling the natural stuff.

[1]https://www.etsy.com/listing/4443524661/lab-grown-red-ruby-s...

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#66

Post by margalabargala »

bdangubic wrote: post #54
margalabargala wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first person hedged their statement with "I heard once" so it's likely true regardless of whether the rest is accurate. In a similar vein it has been said (by me, just now) that DeBeers is actually already out of diamonds and manufactures then de novo from the compressed ashes of orphans.

I heard that De Beers donated 99.6% of all of their profits so I am not sure what all the hoopla is about them

Right but I heard that the recipient of the donation was the Epstein-Trump Boarding School For Children.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#67

Post by kstrauser »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #47
SoftTalker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can replace the taste, appearance, and texture of a medium-rare rib eye with lab grown meat at a substantially cheaper price, we will.

True, but it's also the case that in some places and subcultures we're already at a point where meat with certain qualifications in some contexts is a Veblen good, and the rhetoric around it is very much a quasi-mystical blend of notions of purity and vitalism (see e.g. paleo/primal/ancestral diet influencers). That edge, almost by definition, can't be produced in a lab, and if we were really being purely rational/ut…

I love a good cheeseburger. I’ve enjoyed ones from Michelin restaurants and from local holes in the wall; I’m not choosy. To me, the taste and texture of a cheeseburger is one of the best testing things on the planet.

I do not eat cheeseburgers to feel manly or dominant. I eat them because they are delicious. If I could have a plant-based or otherwise non-meat burger that tastes as good as the real thing, I’d eat it. Impossible burgers are getting close and I’ve had my fair share of them, but they’re not there yet. They’re near enough that I’m confident we’ll get there soon.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#68

Post by ninjalanternshk »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #26
senorrib wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not even close to being true.

You both need to provide citations my dudes.

AI coughed up a bunch of references that put their stockpile estimate at around a year. Might have been more at one time but nothing close to 100.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#69

Post by fooker »

moate wrote: post #29
wonderwonder wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, as long as it's meat. Lab grown meat from cells is meat. The reason impossible never worked was becuase it wasn't meat. Very few people are going to trade meat for soy and vegetables

IDK what "never worked" means here, the market cap for Impossible/Beyond alone is still over a billion dollars. You can still get an Impossible Whopper at any Burger King in the US. There's plenty of issues with selling meat alternatives, I don't think you're the person to speak to them for some reason...

You're off by ~40%.

Their combined market cap seems to be around 600M.

Re: South African diamond mines are closing due to weak sales and lab-grown stones

#70

Post by andrewflnr »

kstrauser wrote: post #57
willsmith72 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's little to no difference in quality between the two Lab grown can be way better quality. To me it was a no-brainer considering the ethical concerns, then add in the cost difference. The only argument I've heard for natural is "I like the imperfections". Sounds like brainwashing to me. They're chemically identical The mining industry should die

I personally find lab grown much more beautiful, in that they’re an amazing accomplishment of mankind’s science and technology. So a tree got squeezed underground until it turned into a crystal? Cool, I guess, but big deal. Humans learned enough about how matter works to recreate those conditions at industrial scale? That’s amazing! I’d much rather wear a monument to our cleverness than a dinosaur mashed under a rock…

This is a more honest and realistic take than most on the thread. Note that either way it's the provenance behind the gem that you find attractive, much more than any instantaneous quality of it like chemistry, lack/presence of defects, etc. It's the story.
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