
De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds - bkohlmann
http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/29/news/companies/de-beers-man-made-diamonds/index.html
======
fgonzag
"Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a
lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable
fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now"

This is clearly a play to devalue the image of man made diamonds. "May not be
forever" my ass, it's the exact same thing. Their goal is probably to try to
quickly drive the price of man made diamonds down to the price of Moissanite,
and create a artificial distinction between natural and man made dimaonds. All
of this so the price of man made diamonds doesn't bring down the price of the
natural stones with it.

~~~
godzillabrennus
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.

~~~
BurningFrog
That's not how disbelieving works.

People disbelieve facts that would cost them to believe. If I believe in
climate change, I have to make expensive life changes (sell the SUV, buy a
Tesla, etc). Therefore I will not believe in it.

This belief is 100% honest, BTW. This is key to understand!

For diamonds, the incentives are reversed. If I believe that artificial
diamonds are as good as the natural kind, I can get a wedding ring much
cheaper. So I will probably believe that!

If I have already bought natural diamonds, I might believe something else. But
it doesn't matter much, since I'm not buying more diamonds.

~~~
goodpass
Erm, I think it’s more like “I have a certain worldview that is only
consistent if climate change isn’t real” or “this belief is part of my
identity, which means the idea that it could be wrong is threatening to my
identity”.

~~~
ballenf
Or, believing in X empowers the opposition and weakens the party who cares
about the people I care about.

------
1024core
THIS IS NOT ABOUT MAN-MADE DIAMONDS!

Read this article: [https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/05/29/de-beers-to-
sell...](https://www.thestar.com/business/2018/05/29/de-beers-to-sell-man-
made-diamonds.html)

Read the last paragraph:

 _The move also comes at a sensitive time for De Beers and its relationship
with Botswana, the source of three-quarters of its diamonds. The two have a
sales agreement that gives De Beers the right to market and sell the diamonds
from Botswana. The deal, which gives De Beers its power over global prices,
will soon be up for negotiation and Botswana is likely to push for more
concessions._

So this is not about man-made diamonds; it's a negotiating tactic! They'll use
this move to pressure Botswana to accept weaker conditions and less money.

~~~
jarito
Good? If the acceptable price paid for diamonds in both the wholesale and
retail markets is lowered, then the pressure to mine diamonds (and the
attendant violence & natural damage) should be lowered as well. That seems
like a good outcome? Additionally, DeBeers is unlikely to be able to dominate
the lab-grown market so this step should legitimize lab-grown stones with
little risk of creating another monopoly.

~~~
dalbasal
I wouldn't jump to any such conclusions.

De Beers has spent the last 100+ years controlling the diamond industry's
economics in it's entirety, from mining (via such contracts) to retail. They
even invented the diamond engagement ring tradition, as we know it today. De
Beers are most active on the wholesale side, where they control supply (and
when they can, demand) to maintain stable, high "prices."

...That's why they are/control a cartel. I have no doubt that de beers _does
not_ intend to enter this market so that they can compete in an "efficient"
level playing field. That's not what they do. They want to exert control over
one or both of these markets, in some way. That is always the de beers
business plan.

Anyway... I always get a little worried when people apply the basics of
supply-demand logic everywhere. Classical economics describes markets of a
certain type: many buyers and sellers, reasonable transparency & information
flow, not too much collusion, reasonably low transaction costs, mild
psychology/cultural effects..... This is some fraction of the economy but not
all.

Supply-demand is not the main thing determining outcomes (prices & volume) in
a lot of big markets: labour, financial services, banking, oil, ISPs...
diamonds. Supply and demand effect those markets, but not in a way that can be
described by 2 intersecting curves.

~~~
kd0amg
Hasn't neoclassical economics been adapting supply/demand reasoning to markets
without perfect competition for quite a long time though?

------
ocdtrekkie
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, grown, slaughtered, and cooked, is "better" or tastes "more
authentic", despite no technical difference?

Synthetic diamonds could, in fact, be in every way "better" (though
hilariously, De Beers suggests a synthetic diamond "may not be forever"), but
I won't be surprised if authentic diamonds remain the "real ones" long term.
(After all, as we know, diamonds actually have no real value, it's all
marketing.)

~~~
Tyr42
Compare synthetic vanilla flavouring vs plant based. Same molecule, but big
price difference.

~~~
GordonS
Something is different though - vanilla flavouring doesn't taste nearly as
good as real vanilla. I guess the vanilla contains a spectrum of substance,
whereas the flavouring only contains the main one?

~~~
astura
Yes

Vanilla is actually vanilla - it's a complex substance. Artificial vanilla is
just one component of vanilla - vanillin.

------
akhatri_aus
It seems De Beers strategy is to clearly differentiate a man made stone vs a
natural stone.

This way a man made stone can't easily cannibalize the value of a natural
stone's market price premium.

The goal it seems is in-fact to maintain a premium with natural stones which
is De Beers speciality. If they can't have all the revenues, De Beers want all
the profits of the industry.

------
acchow
De Beers hasn't admitted defeat. They've pivoted strategies.

"De Beers launched a new jewelry brand on Tuesday [...] The brand, called
Lightbox [...] will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering
consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting:
affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right
now,"

Genius attack from marketing.

~~~
degenerate
So the position is, it's not a shiny rock with natural scarcity and artificial
inflated value because we hoard all the diamonds... but instead, a shiny rock
with artificial scarcity _and_ value because we hoard all the laboratories and
control price.

I fear the publishing and journal industries will stick around for another 100
years, just like De Beers has done to the diamond industry. We'll still be in
the same crappy predicament in 2118 asking how we got to this point where a
few publishers control all the world's flow of knowledge, and the answer will
be something to the tune of "because people still like paying high prices for
shiny rocks"

~~~
acchow
How can they hoard all the laboratories? This isn't a repeat of the early 20th
century. It is way easier to make a lab than to find a new diamond mine.

~~~
dbasedweeb
It’s even easier for DeBeers to crush that lab, or buy it up and shut it down.

~~~
gonvaled
Every time they buy one lab and crush it down, they are losing money. The
amount they lose depends on two things:

1 - how much profit the lab owners are making (otherwise, why sell it to
DeBeers)

2 - how many labs per year they need to buy

The possible scenarios here are complex. Let's explore one:

"It is cheap to create a new Laboratory, production of artificial diamonds
(identical to natural ones) is cheap, and they produce handsome profits
because the competing (indistinguishable) product (natural ones) is very
expensive"

DeBeers will have a hard time buying all the laboratories popping-up all over
the world, while at the same time the price of diamonds starts to drop because
of the arrival of these cheap, indistinguishable alternatives.

DeBeers will bleed to death pretty quickly in this scenario.

Please note that we assume here several points:

\- artificial diamonds are really indistinguishable

\- there is no barrier to creating and producing artificial diamonds, other
than the usual business barriers that other industries have (investment, IP,
...)

------
kregasaurusrex
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 market and demand for these artifically produced diamonds,
the cost of production will significantly drop where it could be more
affordable for researchers and companies to invest their time and ideas into.

~~~
gruez
>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.

~~~
mrob
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.

~~~
madengr
There was a an engineer several years ago developing a process to create large
sheets of diamond. He claims to have received numerous death threats.

~~~
userbinator
Was he related to this?

[http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life-
sciences...](http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life-
sciences/a-155-carat-diamond-with-92-mm-diameter.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Single-
crystal_CVD_diamon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Single-
crystal_CVD_diamond_disc.jpg)

~~~
madengr
Don’t think so. It was a guy in the USA, about 10 years ago. Though looks like
many are doing it now with CVD. Diamond semiconductors are the holy grail,
though there is current work growing diamond heat spreaders directly under GaN
active regions.

~~~
userbinator
That was probably the Apollo Diamond guy:
[https://www.wired.com/2003/09/diamond/](https://www.wired.com/2003/09/diamond/)

CVD is probably the better technology for producing bulk diamond, since it
doesn't require the extreme temperatures and pressures of the HPHT process;
and there's existing CVD processes and equipment from the semiconductor
industry which provide a good body of knowledge to work with. CVD grows plates
of diamond, whereas HPHT makes small cubes.

~~~
madengr
Yes, that was it. Thanks.

------
artellectual
My wife and I got married without buying a diamond ring. I simply refused to
spend money in things that are overvalued by the market because some marketing
scheme was so strong that it made facts look silly. I told her that I refuse
to spend money on things that cause other people pain. Especially when there
is no guarantee that the diamond we buy are not blood diamond. Instead we
invested our money in buying things that are truly beneficial in our lives,
like buy an SUV, preparing for a baby, preparing to buy a home.

I have to say this is a huge step forward. I just talked to her about buying
her a 3 carat lab-grown diamond ring now because of this news. She's still in
doubt. I told her "It's the exact same thing, and no one died in the process
the rest is up to your perception now".

~~~
jiri
The historical purpose of an engagement ring/gift was to demonstrate your
serious interest and your intentions. Via spending money for her that cannot
be taken back. Unfortunatelly, diamonds fit this quite nicely.

Actually, the best way to demonstrate it is via these rules:

(1) you have to get something that is _very hard_ to get (more money than you
normally have),

(2) something that has _no use for you_ (you want to convince her, it wouldn't
be convincing if you benefitted from spending)

(3) and preferrably it is _not monetizable for recipient_ (in general, woman
is much less motivated to tricking you only because of gift)

So, if she's already convinced to merry you, spending fortune for diamond ring
is futile. And if you are in hurry, you can really just burn some money to ash
in front of her, it would do the same :) Nonetheless, not as fancy as diamond
ring for her :D

------
kibwen
_> "Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers
a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable
fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now," said
De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver._

I'm simply speechless at the stupidity of this statement. A contender for one
of the outright dumbest CEO-speak lies of the decade.

~~~
Johnny555
It may be a lie, it may be marketing speak, but it's not dumb - they are
sitting on a huge stockpile of natural stones, admitting that lab grown
diamonds are the same (or even better due to the lack of flaws) than natural
diamonds would lose a lot of money. So he has to say something that preserves
the value in natural diamonds.

~~~
kibwen
Yes, I understand the strategic value of his words. My speechless stems from
my inability to find a profound way to express my dismay that we live in a
world where such farcically untrue statements are standard operating
procedure. The statement is nonsensical; he knows it, we know it, he knows
that we know it, and we know that he knows that we know it. And yet despite
the utter transparency of the lie, no CEO would ever dream of not telling it.
I suppose I'm just sad that we live in a world that has so completely
disincentivized corporate honesty.

------
Hermel
What you are all not getting is that a diamond is not about its chemical
properties, but about economic signalling. Just like artificial fur could not
replace natural fur, man-made diamonds will never be the luxury item mined
diamonds are today. Diamonds, just like gold, are not valuable because of
their physical properties, but because they are rare. If someone invented a
way to produce arbitrary amounts of gold at a low price, it would not make
everyone rich, it would just lead to a collapse of the gold price (unless of
course you can somehow distinguish it from the traditional gold, which is what
De Beers is trying to ensure for diamonds).

~~~
paulie_a
But they are not actually that rare. It's simply a controlled supply by a
cartel losing its grip.

~~~
hrabago
Artificial scarcity successfully implemented is still scarcity. For example,
trading cards printed in low numbers can drive the prices for those cards
high.

~~~
paulie_a
But they are not even artificially scarce. The price plummets after purchase
immediately. Go buy a used engagement ring for instance. It is tainted for
some reason but heavily discounted. Diamonds are not rare and not even that
pretty compared to other gems.

------
mikkom
> The new synthetic diamonds will come in pink, blue and white, and the stones
> will contain a tiny Lightbox logo. De Beers said the logo won't be visible
> to the naked eye, but it will make the stones easily identifiable as lab-
> grown.

This would suggest that it's not easy to identify lab-grown diamonds from
other diamonds.

~~~
exabrial
There's a fluorescence test and a conductivity test they do. Iirc, the natural
diamonds _do worse_ and that's how they identity them.

------
19235982958329
Can someone summarize the progress in synthetic diamond research for the past
two decades?

From mid-90s to early 00s I remember the diamond hype, from Neal Stephenson's
The Diamond Age, to the practical refinement of making cost-effective
synthetic gem quality diamonds, high-frequency heat-dissipating semiconductor
wafers, and speculation of biocompatible nanotechnology such as respirocytes.

What problems were encountered with scaling, energy efficiency, cost, and
competitor materials? Are they still applicable technologies working their way
through the R&D pipeline?

~~~
ridgeguy
In general:

Two pathways have led to economically viable synthetic gem diamonds. One is
chemical vapor deposition (CVD), the other is high pressure, high temperature
(HPHT) growth.

The successful CVD makers use hydrogen+methane and high power microwaves
(typically 915MHz, 30-60kW) to form plasmas that cause diamond to deposit and
grow on small diamond seeds. IIa Technologies, Diamond Foundry are two of
these.

HPHT is an old technology, the first to unambiguously demonstrate diamond
synthesis in the 1950s. It grows diamonds in metal solvents at high
temperature and pressure (typically 1000°C at a million psi). It has come to
be successful in gem diamond production due to better press design and use of
modern process controls.

The business challenge in gem diamond production isn't any aspect of the
technology. It's the sales.

De Beers has a hundred years of channels for whatever type of diamond they
want to sell. Newcomers have to build their own channels, largely because the
older ones are highly loyal to De Beers and won't handle goods from any other
source.

As the CEO of one of the most successful synthetic diamond producers recently
told me, if their cost of production were zero, it would still be a major
challenge to sell their gems.

------
jypepin
I'm surprised article like this don't mention how NOT valuable real diamonds
actually are and how it's all a marketing stunt from the 50s[1].

It's pretty funny to see De Beers and co trying to defend how precious their
"real" stones are while the face value of man-made ones might actually be
higher than those real ones they acquire slaving away poor african countries.

[1] [https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-
bulls...](https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bullshit)

------
49bc
> _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.

~~~
alonmower
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.

------
sytelus
The surprising thing for me is that synthetic diamond industry has so
thoroughly failed to create marketing campaign, sales channels and branding.
Even a noob like me can think of few good enough marketing slogans: "Diamonds
Purer than Nature", "Perfection is never old", "Just like Kohinoor" and so on.
They can create a brand of personalized diamonds with different shapes that
symbolizes couple's story. They can completely overtake 3rd world countries
where people would jump at 20% cheaper diamonds and most don't even know that
synthetics exists.

Many technological advancements had obsoleted traditional companies. I'm
surprised De Beers is still around.

------
merinowool
Excuse me my ignorance, but could you bury lab grown diamonds deep in the
earth (company back garden) and then mine them few weeks later, so that you
can tell these were pulled from the earth?

~~~
CydeWeys
The difference between the two is the flaws within the diamond itself (natural
diamonds have more). Burying a diamond doesn't do anything to it; the
difference dates back to its formation.

Now if you're burying the synthetic diamond hundreds of miles deep, where the
pressure is high enough to create diamonds from scratch, then you might be
into something.

~~~
merinowool
If it was not possible to make diamond in the lab, ideally clean ones would be
presumably most expensive?

~~~
CydeWeys
Higher quality natural diamonds still are the most expensive.

------
syntaxing
Diamonds are seriously overrated. I've been trying to convince all my friends
to buy lab grown Moissanite instead of diamonds. People do not understand how
good Moissanite looks up close in person. It looks and shines like (if not
better than) diamond. I mean a hardness between 9.5 and 10 really isn't that
big of a difference.I highly recommend anyone looking for an engagement ring
to at least look at Moissanite in person once.

------
ridgeguy
This is interesting in light of pretty much everybody's agreement that
economically recoverable gem diamond reserves have mostly been found and
production of naturals will plateau around 2020, followed by an irrevocable
decline. [1]

I think De Beers is looking at a revenue/margin maximization endgame. I
wouldn't be surprised to see Anglo American sell De Beers off within a couple
of years.

And the price of synthetics compared to equivalent quality/weight naturals
will continue to fall. Synthetic/natural prices are now ~70%, whereas a little
over a year ago, they were ~90%. Hydrogen, methane and microwaves are much
cheaper than titanic mines.

[1]
[https://www.economist.com/international/2017/02/25/a-report-...](https://www.economist.com/international/2017/02/25/a-report-
from-de-beerss-new-diamond-mine)

------
MarkMc
One day man-made diamonds will be indistinguishable from natural diamonds.

When that happens I wonder what will become of the 'rule' that says a man
should spend 3 months salary on a wedding ring. Perhaps a Rolex watch will
substitute for a diamond ring in signalling to your friends that you have a
rich husband?

~~~
CydeWeys
It's an antiquated rule that no longer makes sense given that women work now
too. It only really ever made sense as an equivalent of a male dowry, which
just isn't needed in modern gender egalitarian society.

------
ajmurmann
I hope that people will buy their manufactured diamonds elsewhere and evil
DeBeers can go out of business.

------
exabrial
What drives the female desire to have an expensive engagement ring in the USA?
I'm not criticising anyone for desiring one, but I've never asked easier. I
like the idea of wearing rings, but I'd do something more exotic and rare,
like iridium or something.

~~~
gowld
de Beers' marketing campaign, sustained for over a century:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-
yo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-
tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/)

------
triviatise
People will keep buying natural diamonds, _because_ they are more expensive.
Just like $30K handbags will continue to sell because they are $30k. Some
people will buy copies, but many people would rather have nothing than a fake.

For status conscious people (which is most people) they would rather have a
smaller natural diamond than a larger man made diamond. This has already been
proven with pearls.

Most sheeple would recognize when someone else is wearing a diamond that is
too big for their status and decide it is a fake. Many people wouldn't wear a
too-big manmade diamond for that reason.

~~~
gowld
People would wear a just-big-enough artificial diamond, though, and enjoy
pocketing the difference in price. Pressure to compete then drives everyone to
buy only artificial.

------
joecool1029
What a shit headline.

The former president of the US branch of the world's largest synthetic diamond
producer once told me personally, that she expected their market to get
destroyed once De Beers started to shift focus over to synthetics. They had
the head start but didn't dare undercut the cartel that much.

This is just De Beers moving forward on that roadmap which has involved the
shutdown of mines and price fixing to keep the price of synthetics and natural
diamonds propped up. They've done a very good job of keeping synthetics within
80% or so the price of a natural diamond.

------
shmerl
Diamonds are overpriced through social engineering. There is no real need for
these carbon crystals to cost that much. But diamond producers inflated demand
for them, turning them into status symbols.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
Prices were based upon supply which for the longest time, DeBeers controlled.
They controlled the quantity and quality of the stones they offered at their
price. When diamonds were found in Russia and Canada, their control of the
market went away. Diamonds are not nor ever were rare.

~~~
shmerl
Demand for them is still inflated. They were not commonly used as gems in the
past.

------
senectus1
foxcon or Samsung need to work on the artificial diamond tech for phone
screens.

That'll put the industry solidly in the here to stay state, permanently.
Probably shut debeers up permanently as well.

~~~
userbinator
It sounds like a good idea until you realise that besides the extreme
hardness, diamond is also extremely brittle and thus likely to shatter from
impact --- and the thought of having xray-transparent shards of diamond
forcefully embedded into one's skin is quite unpleasant.

------
motohagiography
Diamonds were the original bitcoin.

Knew a bit about the diamond business from growing up.

\- Required huge proof of work. \- Few practical use cases. \- Store of value.
\- Highly portable. \- Price a function of liquidity. \- Clustered around use
cases like capital flight, high denomination cash, opacity, and black market
transactions, asset protection/hiding.

I would argue blockchain has done more harm to the diamond market than
synthetic diamonds have. Between the two, it's been a perfect storm.

~~~
gowld
Diamonds are a very poor store of value, as they depreciate 50% or more after
initial purchase.

Portability / Launderability, perhaps, but that's a bit different from "store"

------
patall
> The world's largest diamond miner is doing the unthinkable: Selling stones
> produced in a laboratory.

Sorry, but that is some plain wrong headlining. Maybe its a first that they
sell them as jewelry but De Beers is producing (and selling) synthetic
diamonds now for 60 years and is already one of if not the biggest producer
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_Six](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_Six))

~~~
dchest
This is mentioned in the article.

------
kelvin0
Anyone interested in the details and PR behind DeBeers:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDfs54uwG9w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDfs54uwG9w)

It's an eye opening Frontline (PBS) doc from 1994. This suggests DeBeers
created an artificial diamond 'rarity' and other cultural and economic
'shenanigans' so to speak.

------
themagicteeth
I work for a jewelry company that sells lab grown diamonds and we recently
started a push towards marketing lower priced engagement rings with lab grown
center stones. This marketing of theirs makes the owners of my company feel
uncomfortable marketing these rings now.

------
lowbloodsugar
"The new synthetic diamonds will come in pink, blue and white, and the stones
will contain a tiny Lightbox logo. De Beers said the logo won't be visible to
the naked eye, but it will make the stones easily identifiable as lab-grown."

So de beers will intentionally damage their synthetic diamonds. Sure I wanna
buy synthetic diamonds from you guys.

~~~
gowld
An authentic natural diamond also has an identification mark.

[http://www.e-worlddiamondbourse.com/Services/LaserEngraving](http://www.e-worlddiamondbourse.com/Services/LaserEngraving)

~~~
lowbloodsugar
But again, this is them damaging the diamond just so they can distinguish
between real and synthetic. There's no difference, but they want there to be a
difference, so they made one. So, lets be clear, a _natural_ diamond does
_not_ have an identification mark.

------
rsync
How large of a man-made diamond can I buy and how much would it cost ?

It would be fun to have a ~600 carat diamond as a paperweight...

------
peter_retief
I worked for De Beers about 30 years ago, already they used to produce some
industrial diamonds artificially, it wasn't a big deal then but when you see
what large volume industrial stones get mined from kimberlite pipes in
existing mines it probably didn't make economic sense. Gem quality stones are
far less common

------
ivanhoe
And we don't even need synthetic diamonds to bring the prices down, it would
be enough just to liberalize the diamond mining. De Beers is artificially
pumping up the prices by limiting the mining that they almost entirely
control, it's a typical case of monopoly on the resources.

------
SilasX
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 Lightbox logo. De Beers said the logo won't be visible to
the naked eye, but it will make the stones easily identifiable as lab-grown.

Sounds like a plan to ensure that synthetic diamonds are quickly
distinguishable from natural ones and the latter still command a premium.
(They had long been seeking a way to ensure distinguishability after lab-
growers kept frustrating such efforts.)

~~~
Aunche
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.

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

~~~
bdavisx
No, it won't: [https://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/cvd-
diamond.html](https://www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/cvd-diamond.html)

~~~
SilasX
“Monopoly” doesn’t mean there are literally no alternatives.

------
ChuckMcM
This is a pretty amazing development. I expect that in 20 years "natural"
diamonds will less commonly sold than lab made ones. Certainly for jewelry
there are good reasons to go with a lab diamond (better clarity and color for
a lot less money) and no downside.

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CodeSheikh
I guess it is time to release all those diamonds from the vaults that they
have been hoarding for decades. It is funny/ironical how man-made diamonds
satisfy all "C's" criteria whereas mostly naturally occurring diamonds have
some flaws.

------
redm
"..it's the exact same thing."

This seems like flawed logic. It's not the exact same thing. If a painter
reproduces a Picasso, otherwise knows as art fraud, does it have the same
value as the original? Why not? I'll leave it at that.

~~~
gowld
If you reproduce a Picasso, it's not a Picasso. But if you reproduce a
_Guernica_ , it's a _Guernica_.

If you reproduce a diamond, it's not a de Beers, but it's still a diamond.

~~~
redm
In the sense that they are both 'diamonds' they are the same thing. In the
sense that one was created by the earth, and one was created by man, they are
not the same. Just like with the painting, where it came from, its provenance,
matters.

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jlebrech
I have an application for (fake) diamonds and that's cycle wear, imagine
drivers giving you a wide berth when they see shiny diamonds at strategic
locations on you bike and clothing because they don't want a by scratch on
their bodywork.

------
sunstone
Aluminium also went through a transition from precious to a commodity early in
the last century. It's cautionary tale for those who expect that "natural"
diamonds will continue to have pricing power in the market as time goes by.

~~~
carapace
One of the things I liked about "Diamond Age" was thinking about cheap diamond
as a building material...

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xur17
Are there any perceptible differences between these and 'natural' diamonds?

~~~
jseliger
Does anyone remember the bunch of PR around Diamond Foundry?
[https://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-
grown...](https://qz.com/630512/would-you-propose-with-a-diamond-grown-in-a-
lab/) was on HN. I've seen their diamonds and they seem quite nice, from the
naked eye, to me. Their direct-to-consumer company is here:
[https://vraiandoro.com/](https://vraiandoro.com/) and as far as I can tell,
their diamonds look nice and like other diamonds, at least from the outside.

~~~
cpitman
Are diamond foundry's prices an accurate idea of the cost to manufacture lab
diamonds? I was surprised by what seem like only slight discounts over natural
diamonds.

------
forkLding
Not surprised, DeBeers isnt exactly a "diamond zealot" as they were the
company that hoarded diamond supply to drive up scarcity and prices, they're
more interested in monopolies and profits.

------
richk449
De beers has been selling synthetic diamonds for decades.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_Six](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_Six)

------
iamgopal
Title should read, de beers found a way to defeat man made diamonds

------
zurp
"Yeah we sell that cheap-ass lab shit too. But you should really buy the
really expensive natural stuff that we've manipulated the price of for
decades."

------
himom
Poor De Beers: a vertically-integrated monopoly, keeping diamonds more
profitable, low resale value and artificially (pun intendes) desired by brides
since 1938.

------
wyc
Synthetic diamonds might be a disruptive innovation. They are often cheaper,
lower quality, and lacking in complex features such as authenticity. There is
a different and advantageous cost structure compared to that of mining for
natural diamonds, and this product fulfills the new job of culling
environmental and humanitarian concern.

In this scenario, we may be witnessing an incumbent firm unable to adopt new
disruptive technologies because its revenue structures are incompatible, as
the current margins and volumes for synthetics are likely far lower than those
of mined diamonds.

~~~
artellectual
Lower Quality? Lacking in complex feature? authenticity? what is considered
authentic? If i tell you water is authentic if it's made from 2 hydrogen atoms
and 1 oxygen atom, in the same way that diamond is made from compressed carbon
and whether synthetic or dug from the ground. when the chemical construct is
the same what determines it as not being authentic and lower quality? In fact
synthetic diamonds offer higher clarity than natural ones depending on which
one you choose, they have visually perfect ones in the same way natural
diamonds do. So where is this "lower quality" coming from?

~~~
wyc
Quality can be pretty subjective. If you're making a saw-blade that needs
diamond tips, synthetic could be even better, as you rightly mention. If, for
whatever reason, you value that the rock has been dug from the ground, then on
this dimension the synthetic has worse quality.

------
amelius
Question: can man-made diamonds be distinguished from natural diamonds in a
blind test? If so, could they be engineered to be indistinguishable?

------
tomtimtall
Translation: De Beers is losing the battle, so they are now going to pretend
to be both sides of the battle and stage a victory for themselves.

------
ttflee
Is it feasible to stabilize carbon in the form of synthesized diamond using
renewable energy to fight global warming?

------
folli
[De Beers] even developed a machine that spots lab-grown stones.

How does that work? They should be indistinguishable.

~~~
gowld
Lab-grown stones are more symmetrical and pure than natural stones.

------
ersh
All that jewelry industry looks fake to me. There is absolutely no value in
man-made or nonmanmade jewels at all. I am wondering why people pay even a
penny for that.

~~~
umanwizard
What's so hard to understand? Jewelry exists because it

(1) makes people look more attractive, and

(2) enables conspicuous consumption.

Humans aren't Vulcans who make decisions rationally. We're apes with a
facility for reason tacked on as an afterthought.

~~~
cf498
Diamonds are historically an extremely new phenomenon with the demand outside
of industry created by De Beers massive advertisement campaign over almost a
century.

Diamond Jewelry exists because advertisement works.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-
yo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-
tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/)

~~~
umanwizard
I'm referring to jewelry in general, which has existed for tens of thousands
of years.

Fashions come and go, but whether shell beads or diamonds, the point is the
same.

------
Hasz
Why can't we treat diamonds like the commodity they are?

Don't give me a story, give me a MOQ, spec sheet and a quote.

------
purplejacket
Today I shed tears for beloved De Beers :-(

