I strongly recommend you read the article "Diamonds are Bullshit" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5403988) before reading this. To summarize, genuine diamonds are extremely plentiful. It's just that De Beers has done an excellent job limiting the supply, to artificially drive up the price. When synthetic diamonds first came out on the market, De Beers started a succesful advertising campaign basically saying that synthetic diamonds were inferior. The most interesting part of this article is that De Beers' stranglehold on the market is starting to slip; people are realizing that synthetic diamonds are good enough. It will be extremely interesting to see their advertising campaign.

The march of technology carries on.

> There's an interesting article that talks about how they initially created demand for diamonds as they weren't commonly associated with an engagement.

One of my favorite Priceonomics Articles - "Diamonds a re Bullshit" [0]. Previous discussions on HN [1,2]. Also, previous discussion on "Lab-Grown Diamonds" [3].

There are some cheap alternatives to diamonds like Moissanite. Here's a nice overview [4]. Also, discussed previously on HN [5].

[0] https://priceonomics.com/post/45768546804/diamonds-are-bulls...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5403988

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9251952

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11903409

[4] http://diamondssuck.com

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464

This story - Diamonds are Bullshit - comes up regularly, and I bookmarked it back in 2013 because it's so good.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5403988

There is nothing to miss about the impending death of the 'diamond industry'.

(Oh, the link is broken on the HN 2013 story -- try this one: https://priceonomics.com/diamonds-are-bullshit/ )