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  • Hacker News
  • I heard once that even if DeBeers stopped all diamond mining activity, their existing stockpile would last for a 100 years or more.
    by mlmonkey
  • Oh shame. The poor devils.
    by davidhyde
  • https://www.wsj.com/business/diamond-mines-are-closing-and-s...
    by bookofjoe
  • I wonder if diamonds become cheap enough, and we are growing the crystal anyway, if we can introduce dopants and get interesting electrical properties.
    by thijson
  • Brutal news for Botswana which was really breaking new ground in raising Sub Saharan living standards. 30% of their GDP and a huge portion of government revenues are diamond exports. And they had gotten to 100% formalized and child labor free supply lines
    by missedthecue
  • This took way longer than I hoped & expected... the DeBeers cartel in full damage control has really squeezed everything they could from it.
    by MobileVet
  • > 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?

    by tedchs
  • 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 as natural ones and that would ruin customers' trust in natural diamonds.

    But it now seems that isn't going to happen because customers are voting with their feet and leaving natural diamonds behind.

    by hn_submit

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