Rock Bottom — Part 2: The Interests Behind the Debate

As laboratory-grown diamonds became more accessible, the argument about their place in jewellery continued.

When a technology changes a market, it is worth asking who benefits from the familiar way of doing things.

To my eye, laboratory-grown diamonds challenged a luxury narrative built around scarcity.

To be fair, some criticisms of laboratory-grown diamonds are entirely reasonable.

In his 2019 essay "Synthetic Ethics", Martin Rapaport warned consumers about laboratory-grown diamonds' ability to retain value.

The risk of price decline deserves to be explained honestly.

Their supply is not limited by geological scarcity.

They can be produced in increasing quantities.

Growing supply and competition have contributed to substantial price declines.

Consumers deserve transparency about that reality.

De Beers also makes natural rarity central to its position; its May 2025 announcement of its intention to close Lightbox reaffirmed its commitment to natural diamonds.

An appreciation for rarity is a reasonable preference.

Natural diamonds are geological miracles. Natural diamonds formed deep within the Earth, and many are billions of years old.

If rarity is what you value most, natural diamonds remain a compelling choice.

But something interesting happens when we look more closely at the conversation.

Some prominent voices in this debate have a clear commercial interest in natural diamonds.

Natural diamond miners.

Natural diamond traders.

Natural diamond marketing organisations.

Natural diamond inventory holders.

Natural diamond publications.

This does not mean they are wrong.

It gives the reader useful context for weighing their arguments.

A company selling natural diamonds has a reason to explain and defend natural rarity.

A couple buying a ring may be asking a different question.

They may see a laboratory-grown diamond as room to choose differently.

A kind of freedom.

Freedom to purchase a larger diamond.

Freedom to allocate more money toward a home.

Freedom to travel.

Freedom to start a family.

Freedom to invest elsewhere.

Freedom to decide what luxury means to them.

And perhaps this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable for parts of the jewellery industry.

Laboratory-grown diamonds have changed pricing.

I think they also disrupted status.

A familiar status equation runs through the argument:

Bigger diamond = greater success.

Greater success = greater admiration.

Greater admiration = greater desirability.

A person can reject that equation without rejecting a beautiful ring.

Luxury can enrich someone's life without separating them from other people.

This distinction matters.

Because a person who purchases a natural diamond may be expressing an appreciation for rarity, geology, history, or craftsmanship.

Those are beautiful reasons.

If the main purpose is to signal superiority, however, a less expensive alternative makes that purpose harder to sustain.

Perhaps the admiration was never about the diamond at all.

Perhaps it was about what the diamond allowed others to assume.

When a comparable-looking alternative costs much less, the conversation can shift towards exclusivity.

That shift reveals something important.

I suspect some of the discomfort concerns what laboratory-grown diamonds make less exclusive.

They can lower the financial barrier to owning a diamond.

They offer a supply that does not depend on mining.

They remove the assumption that luxury must be inaccessible.

They make a diamond's visible size a less reliable clue to what someone spent.

How we attach status to objects is a human question.

And one worth reflecting upon.

If you would like help separating the grading report from the sales argument, ask the atelier about a diamond you are considering.