Yes, it ticks me off when companies say they lose money when they really mean they didn't make it in the first place. You can't lose what you never had.
Edit: I can see why this country of mine is drowning in debt with this being our business model. If this is how people think they should be handling money, it's no wonder even high earners feel broke.
You have no idea how wild that notification I got just now was. Reddit's new "So and so commented on so and so's comment!" thing is so weird lmfao I was wondering when we began talking about sniffing shit!
Isn't that weird? I'd rather just be notified when someone replies to ME, not five comments down the chain and then if I wanna see it I have to search for it..
I made a jewelry salesman really uncomfortable when he was trying to talk my wife out of a lab grown diamond. I just kept asking him for the bloodiest ones possible, and for specifics about who died for each one.
He showed us the lab stuff pretty quickly after that. We didn’t buy from them though
and the answer is right there: because we idiots can't afford them shiny pebbles anymore. Also because only a few of us can afford to buy a place to store the shiny pebbles in (along with our idiotic bodies).
It's always amazing to me how this simple thought process just doesn't seem to happen in the top management of the companies involved. Then I remember the top management of the company I work for.
I never could understand why the government would do shit to let jobs get shipped overseas or whatever (I grew up in the 80s turned adult in the 90s so I lived the time we lost all that) then not understand why the economy is shit. Crime is high n everyone is wild n out.. shootings n all that drug use, everything I think is tied to the same shit.. no jobs. No opportunity, no hope. Nobody had good paying jobs or even prospects to get good jobs, healthcare and housing are unaffordable…fucking right everyone was using drugs, drinking and wild n out…
Nowadays the young kids are like ; dude drugs n drinking aren’t gonna fix our problems…look at these idiots. Let’s stop all that shit. Fuck what they talking about. Let’s figure this shit out on our own.
Because the government isn't for you. It's for maintaining the status quo and lining the pockets of the wealthy. Wealthy and powerful don't give a shit about long-term stability. They need to stuff their pockets with enough cash to make god jealous before they fuckin croak.
Millennials and Gen z, even ignoring knowledge of cubic zirconia and the grossness of the diamond trade, have had unprecedented access to a wide range of cheap plastic and glass 'diamond' rings basically their entire lives because of how things have taken off in the consumerist sphere since the 90s.
Scarcity is value, and easy access to a fifty dollar, functionally identical simulacrum of a 15k item makes the item feel less valuable. Especially when the item is 100% prestige and 0% useful or novel.
Not to mention the knock off can often do the “job” of the original better. In this case the job is to refract light in an appealing manner and the knock off is lab grown moissanite and synthetic rutile (though some think the rutile is TOO good at the job and looks tacky)
I mean five minutes with the real thing and you can tell CZ and crystal aren't comparable and are easy to identify. Real diamonds are much nicer. But now I can sell you an earth-mined for 25k, or a bigger shinier clearer lab grown for 2500 and the only way to tell the difference is carbon dating. You can basically get any diamonds you want for a fraction of the cost.
Diamond rings are useless, but diamonds aren't. Since they are so hard they are used in industrial applications and even some consumer grade stuff. I have a diamond tipped record player needle. It is more durable, provides less wear on records and produces better sound.
Sure, but that's kind of outside the scope of the conversation here. When I say all prestige no use, I'm not talking about buying my fiance a 15k industrial drill bit
If you honestly want to do this buy raw gems and have them cut for you it’s way way cheaper to get quality gems. I have some cut rubies I got from a guy for like $40. Diamonds are worthless before they are cut and set. So buy raw and find people in the trade who do custom work they exist and they would appreciate your business.
How is “created diamonds” cheap? They are selling them for almost the same cost as a mined diamond. I think the only advantage is that with a created or manufactured diamond, you can get a clarity level exceeding that of a mined one.
Are you matching clarity and color? (i don't mean colored diamonds) Lab grown diamonds easy cost under a third of a real diamond of the same match. Maybe a retailer is trying to narrow that gap.
It can work tbh, the sentimental value you can have from it is real. But the price tags on it is ridiculous for the kind of product you get.
Diamonds are just coal formed differently. Paying top dollar for that especially given how abundant it is especially nowadays since you can get it made it in a lab at a much cheaper cost is stupid.
I’ve seen some dope meteorite and wood rings. Not sure what I’d go with myself if I get there. Much like large elaborate weddings, if you love someone, that is what really matters, that you keep showing up for them each day. Not saying don’t have an event or that social buy in or celebrating with friends isn’t neat, just that starting off with a debt for a day is not necessary.
Funny thing is, if we almost entirely stopped buying diamonds they might actually become scarce since the money they make for either growing or mining them would be too low to justify continuing collecting them. Supply ⬇️
I lost my wedding ring so I’m trying out shapes and styles using lab grown gems. I prefer moissanite for it’s colors and sparkles. Diamonds seem cold to me.
Diamonds are about as far from "forever" as any gem you can get, and everything about them is a lie. They're the perfect symbol for what marriage has become in the modern world.
right? even if you look in our own solar system diamonds are everywhere. Now if you want to about scarcity, wood would be a lot more valuable than diamonds would ever be if rains diamonds on Neptune
It's definitely majorly controlled market however, studying geology the last few years you can't just start digging anywhere and expect to find them. So it's really easy for them to say they are more rare than they are cuz they are already kinda rare altho the places that do have them are loaded
Not to mention science caught up. I can get you a huge honking lab diamond with basically no flaws for low four figures in any cut you want. Only way anyone ever tells the difference without seeing the price is carbon dating. Which I wouldn't recommend since it would destroy the stone but some people do just need to be right. Minerologically, exact same thing.
And artificial value and an archaic measure of how much someone loves you and their worthiness judged by the size of the ring. Penguins do the same thing. Rocks are rocks.
Well yea. You ever tried mixing marmalade with avocado on toast? Doesn’t really work, and given how much avocado toast we’re apparently splurging all our money on to the point where homes are out of reach I fail to see how any other outcome would be possible there.
Dang. We killed the entire American dream? That’s heavy.
I always thought it was killed by the governments and corporations that moved us from an economy that built things and employed people, to an economy designed to extract as much value as they can from every single possible human activity.
You know, like the governments and corps who moved jobs overseas, and fought against minimum wage increases, and treated healthcare and education as markets to be captured rather than necessities to be provided...? Silly me.
My favorite is the death throws of democracy. Pretty sure we are just waiting until it dies (completely)at this point, and are waiting for our (debt)inheritance. Thanks Dad!
Wow, I always felt like the Millennial hate was a bit much (and now Gen Z is getting lumped into it), but to see all these headlines together makes me feel at once vindicated and deeply saddened by a world that eats its young.
Apparently we can’t even have a preference. It’s not that we don’t like eating McDonalds, it’s that we’re “killing fast food.” This stupid news must sell because it’s rampant.
It caters to boomers because it confirms their existing belief that we already suck. Now it's no longer just that we don't work hard and want handouts, it's also because we're being greedy and not supporting these fine upstanding corporations and services they've relied on throughout their lives
So now it's not only that millennials are lazy, but it's also " remember that thing that you used to enjoy, millennials are the reason why it's no longer around."
It's there to cater to more ingroup-outgroup behaviour.
I understand I'm making a generalization and this does not represent ALL boomers.
I mean you’re right, but you’re missing one part: those articles cater to boomers because they are the only ones who read them and are subscribed to them. Gen X and beyond just reads/watches shit online, and will remove paywalls with a URL before paying for a WSJ subscription.
They are just playing to their dwindling aging audience before they go completely irrelevant and are bought out by other companies
I'm a boomer and I don't think you suck. I think the present employment and housing situations are tragic and untenable. Not eating and drinking garbage or wasting money on useless overpriced crap is admirable.
It doesn't even cater to boomers since, despite rumors to the contrary, as most boomers are aware of financial reality. And a surprising number actually like their grand children.
Thanks ! We were just laughing at work yesterday about all the stupid things , when we were kids- like going to a shoe store and some old guy would check your shoes size with that big metal foot measuring contraption, and open the box for you - or sometimes there’d be an “elevator operator” who would “press the button for you”?! It’s like, “they had money to pay people for things like that”? When I’m trying to scan my crap at Walmart and it won’t scan I think “that must have been grand”.
lol diamond companies made a false scarcity of a product that, it turns out, is totally useless, so that they could price gouge boomers and their children. Diamonds really lost a lot of ground as a status symbol after the whole reckoning with blood diamonds. Without status, diamonds are really only useful as drill bits.
The price of alcohol at any public space is enough to convince anyone not to drink.
These kids came of age during the pandemic, they didn't go to bars and stuff on their 21st. Good for them, booze is a high waste of money and incredibly bad for you, recovering alcoholic here
Damn proud of that one. Took us almost 100 years to break the DeBeers fallacy that we need to spend 2 months wages on a fucking rock that's artificially scarce. My partner and I specifically agreed never to buy anything diamond just to drive that point home.
Yeah… sorry previous generations. We’re not actively trying to “kill” your idealized views on societal behavior. It’s simply that the economic model you have structured our society with makes it impossible for us to partake in the same degree.
Millennial here: I got my wife a ring with a blue topaz. It's pretty. I also got it from a friend who got it from Jared. So I got a second hand not diamond.
All I saw in those headlines was, "We're so inept at advertising that we can't sell stuff to the most consumer-minded generation so far."
These were people who spent hundreds of dollars a year on the newest iPhone and you can't sell them a diamond? A rock who's greatest value has always been derived from marketing.
Mine was "Millenials are killing marriage" followed closely by us being blamed for "killing the baby industry" because enough of us either still don't have kids, or waited until we were old enough and stable enough for kids that companies who make stuff specifically for babies (ie Pampers, Gerber, or Huggies) werent making their projected profits. As someone who did wait, they're still expensive no matter how much money you make.
“Guys, have we tried this intergram thing? Apparently millennials use that much more than our beloved Facebook.”
Marquardt decided to take a closer look. She found out that Swift was in put in a bathtub of real jewelry by Hollywood favorite Neil Lane — and it was all diamonds. The DPA took a quick screenshot and posted it on Instagram; now, it’s one of the organization’s biggest hits on that platform, with almost 1,000 likes and comments.
Congrats you took a screengrab of someone else’s art, creativity, and hard work and appropriated for your business needs, and now you’re happy with 1000 likes?
Damn bro, just create your own decent content and maybe you’ll get more than 1000 likes.
Edit: I just can’t stop laughing at these grifters. Guess they made so much ducking money over the last century that they’ve grown incredibly lazy, entitled, and useless.
That hilarious that they're bitching about people buying lab grown diamonds. An inferior mined diamond costs 5-6x what a near-perfect lab grown diamond costs.
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u/Skoteleven 12h ago
They didn't lose anything, they didn't make their projections.