The sentimental value of a diamond is its rarity. And natural diamonds with few imperfections are rare. And a big diamond, useless for anything else, is the only way to show how much the marriage is worth. This is what is being sold to us.
Synthetic diamonds are destroying 50 years of marketing.
And I can't believe males and females of 21st century still fall for this. Literally any use of this money could have been better.
*In the USA.
Seems pretty narrow minded. Of course engagements rings are symbolic. The best symbols are deeply rooted in cultural context anyway.
If diamonds aren’t the best symbol for you that’s fine, but try not to fool yourself into thinking you’re being more rational. You might have different priorities or values.
You might also just be a 2 dimensional NPC with nothing to share and therefore no need for symbolism. /jk
The irony here is that diamonds as engagement gifts given by males to females (why not the other way round btw?) have very shallow and well-documented roots. Moreover, given the exploitation around it, it's really bad to found your marriage on if you really think about it.
I suspect we'll be seeing an increase in branding in the diamond business. That's really the only way they can control prices since it's now possible to create man made ones. Given enough time the prices will collapse to the point of cost of producing them plus a small premium. Competition will make sure that happens. There's no way mined diamonds will be able to compete.
Diamonds aren't going away they are just making a marketing transition.
Why not just destroy money? And record this as a memento if needed. May be less wasteful than making the diamond.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Qu...
It's not even just synthetic diamonds, natural diamond scarcity is artificial as well.