They can probably even start charging more for them to make up for the loss of revenue.
It's the same thing as buying a brand vs generic or lesser known brand, even if the latter is the same or better.
Rich people pay enormous sums for vanity plates, this is no different.
Honestly, I'd rather have a stone which was formed over geologic ages in the bowels of the Earth than one which was formed over the last month in a garage in Hoboken.
But I'd also prefer not to subsidise genocide, civil war or De Beers. And I'm cheap.
I can see spending extra on a real diamond for something special, but not for something run-of-the-mill.
The thing is, how many of the traditional uses for jewelry-grade diamonds fall into the category of 'run-of-the-mill'? I think the engagement-ring business is probably secure for a long time. Earrings and other small jewelry? Probably not so much. The sort of things given for important anniversaries and occasions? Probably decently secure.
"Oh cool, you dug up a shiny old rock that's been in the earth for millions of years."
vs for me, man-made diamonds say:
"We used cutting edge technology that can simulate the weight of an entire mountain over a tiny area to make an shiny thing!"
My wife and I are suckers for cool tech. A man-made diamond will forever be cooler than something that happened naturally over millions of years.
They're not even particularly shiny in their natural form.
Can you elaborate on why you feel this way? The products are indistinguishable without an electron microscope, and you stated you don't want to contribute to the evils of the natural diamond trade. So what makes a "real" diamond so fucking desirable? The psychology of that baffles me.
> Can you elaborate on why you feel this way?
I guess I can try, but I suspect that it's one of those things where different folks just have different mindsets.
I think that it'd be amazing to have a stone (diamond, emerald, sapphire, amethyst — whatever) which was the result of long and slow processes operating over millions of years (in the case of diamonds, dating back to the Precambrian, before there were even plants). That's just incredibly cool!
Sure, a lab-grown diamond is an interesting exemplar of man's technical artifice, but it's just not the same thing.
It's an emotional difference, not a rational one.
There's nothing special about diamonds here. Go out and pick up some rocks.
This is the fundamental basis of any luxury market. Quality is a relatively secondary concern, and ethical considerations have appeared only in recent years. Think about one of those discoveries where a little sketch sold at a flea market turns out to be a Caravaggio or something: suddenly the value skyrockets; the art is exactly the same, it's uniqueness that has changed.
Edit: Let me put it another way. Preferring a natural diamond to a lab-grown diamond when you know how they are obtained is tacit approval of murder, theft, and war, atrocities committed to ensure you get that "real" diamond on your finger. It's appalling that any sane, compassionate human being would be so flippant about the lives lost and families torn apart by the diamond trade.
I agree that it's a silly thing to make an engagement about, and that the trade is appalling. But let's not pretend it's not cooler on at least one axis to have an object formed inside the earth vs in a lab.
So your "green" idea actually makes things worse not better.
By the time it's been brilliant-cut, all nominative links to that history are gone. There's all sorts of interesting rocks out there that have been formed over geologic ages in the bowels of the earth, and they're usually dirt-cheap too. Diamonds make attractive jewelery not because of the backstory, but because of the sparkle, and they sparkle just the same regardless of origin.
TL;DR: if it's geological history that you value, a jewel diamond is next to worthless for you.
That said, I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks synthetic is cooler than natural.
I guess some people still enjoy showing it off and proclaiming how expensive it was, but you might as well brag about having flushed a thousand dollars down the toilet for all the effect it will have on your life.