Another option: second hand diamonds, which diamond merchants will tell you don't exist. People die, if they don't pass their stones onto their children, this is where they end up.
Sotheby's jewelly auctions. Know what you want, buy stones and ignore settings (they'll be dated and you can sell the metals), and know you're the only retail customer in a room full of diamond merchants.
Another option: get a house deposit and work on building an eventual family with your woman rather than provide her with trinkets.
It reminds me of one of my friends that owns 4 jewelries. One of those was converted to a sort of gold pawn broker when things got complicated in Spain. He showed me plastic bags full of diamonds that nobody wanted in the industry.
How easy/hard is it to extract diamonds from these old settings and get a new setting for it? Where would one even go to get a diamond placed in a new setting?
Easy. If you have the stone you can get a new setting (and the stone placed in it) at most high/main street jewellers. Everyone who reuses their family stones gets this done, so the jeweller won't mind doing it.
I've thrown around the property idea myself (we already own the house). Instead of the big ring, or an expensive party. I could buy her ten acres somewhere nice for a future retirement-vacation house.
The value is almost guaranteed to appreciate over the course of our marriage (which strikes me as romantic) -- and if there is an unfortunate divorce, she has a chunk of valuable land to sell instead of a useless rock.
> If I can prevent a single reader from needlessly dropping $6,000-10,000+ on a diamond engagement ring, this site will be a success. Financial worries are the #1 cause of stress in a married relationship - there is absolutely NO excuse to start your married life by taking on that level of debt.
Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0]
While reducing/eliminating the cost of the ring is a big saving, the entire wedding industry is a shocking way to start your marriage (especially given about half will end in divorce)
Not everything is about money though. Want to have an extravagant wedding? Fine. Want something basic? Also fine.
Yes: diamonds, jewellery, mechanical watches etc are all bad value for money. People don't buy them because they're bad value. They buy them because they like wearing them, and women buy jewellery because it makes them feel pretty.
That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime.
I think the meaning was in terms of a time keeping device not as a value store. The cheapest Walmart watch keeps time significantly better than the most expensive mechanic watch and many will last years of use.
> That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime.
Sure if you have the money. The problem is that most people don’t and spend what would be a down payment on a house on complete bullshit. It’s a terrible way to start a marriage and likely leads to higher rates of divorce.
It's by far the biggest example of fiscal irresponsibility. What's particularly egregious is when the families of the bride (_cough_ her mother _cough_) or groom push them towards spending they can't afford. The wedding industry preys on those weak emotions knowing that many couples won't push back on the non-sense.
> Weddings are a good example of horrible vicious social pressure depending on where you live.
Fight the power! Be the change!
> Too much of this is similar to "The child of a proper family marries at a certain age and gets a proper wedding".
Getting married "at a certain age" (i.e. young) isn't necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, I'd argue that being a parent (or grandparent!) while you're still young, active, and in good health is a wonderful thing. It's blindly succumbing to social pressure to make financially disastrous decisions that must be avoided. Go ahead an have a wedding party too, but do it on your terms.
The emphasis is on "proper", i.e. the pressure to do that at the socially required age in the expected fashion to proof your worth, which you find in different versions throughout large parts of the world.
Be it most blatantly the shaming of older unmarried women in Chinese society or more practically arranged marriages of young girls in rural middle eastern areas. Honor killings are just the crassest and most publicized method to uphold the second tradition, but if you read reports of women who went through this, the first part is always brutal social pressure by the direct family including "asking" and begging by their own mothers. Never underestimate the viciousness of parents who think they are pushing their children to do the "right" thing and are not above making this their first priority.
If I caught someone in my family pulling crap like continually pressuring spouses to spend above their means and force them into debt with that line of argument they will likely have to reevaluate whether they might be better off without me in their life. A lot of people sadly only realize this after they see family members trying to do the same thing to the next generation. Differently put, depending on how much grandma doesnt understand the word "no stop it" she wont be coming over for the holidays anymore.
> continually pressuring spouses to spend above their means
(I agree with you).. but back to the original commenter's point about the behavior, versus the object of the behavior:
Do you believe that eliminating (or sufficienctly discouraging through education or contrary social pressure) diamonds and/or expensive weddings would sufficiently eliminate this spending above ones means? Or would that spending just shift to other targets, such as different jewelry (which even the article refers to in talking about spending more money on setting instead) or experiences?
I dont think its about how much marriages or diamonds cost. Sure, diamonds are a scam, but the real problem lies with social pressure out of "tradition". Advertisement induced spending for stuff like engagement rings is a much smaller problem.
Having your fiance wanting a diamond ring is a different problem then your mother in law pushing you to spend 30k on your wedding to show off to the neighbors.
Advertisement based spending is just another set of problems when it develops without outside social pressure. Its the difference between your wife needing to show off to her mother and girlfriends, wanting to show off. or you two agreeing about how it might be spend best.
Just to point out though, while the example of diamond rings is focused on the female spouse, this isnt a issue that only happens with her. Pick another example and you could switch the roles.
The last option, of discussing how to spend the money, is simply about the state of your relationship. If you two agree that spending 30k is worth the fun of taking a few month off for vacation, all the best to you. Just do it because you want to, not because you think you have to.
Not fine with me. If a girl wanted a diamond ring and/or and extravagant wedding I'd dump her. Materialistic, low IQ and shallow. Though that's what most people are, I suppose.
Give her a blood diamond to show my affection? No thanks. I'm not brainwashed to think love is suitably communicated through the purchase of goods and services. Excess money not being invested? By golly I better not use it for any form of good; it must obviously go to De Beers!
Just tell someone you love them and do nice things for them and be there for them. It's free.
It's not, and it doesn't need to be a diamond -- it could be flowers, a nice dinner, a exciting getaway together to some obscure place, etc. But the way you're expressing this is you'd laugh someone away for buying something for you.
I'm into mechanical watches. Just because I find them interesting, not for show. I'm not brainwashed, but heck, getting one I really want from someone I love would be close to the ultimate gift. Do I need it? Of course not. Do I expect it? Of course not.
I was talking about diamonds and extravagence desired purely to display wealth and social status (women are particularly vulnerable to this folly), not dinner dates, flowers, and mechanical watches.
Like the two month salary rule for an engagement ring would be a ludicrous thing to expect of a man. Run from that woman.
> I was talking about diamonds and extravagence desired purely to display wealth and social status (women are particularly vulnerable to this folly)
Now you're just being casually sexist. If you want to judge people for how they choose to celebrate their mutual affection that's fine. So diamonds aren't your thing, thanks for sharing. But let's not go down the rabbit hole of litigating one gender's susceptibility over another's.
Yes, probably most people are materialistic, low IQ, and shallow. You're probably no different, and I don't mean that as an insult -- just that you're human, too, like all of us. Welcome to the club.
That's ridiculous. Some people absolutely stand out as not being materialistic and shallow. And some positively excel at it, to grotesque proportions. Don't pretend we are all in the same cesspool.
This comment breaks the site guidelines by crossing into personal attack, and also by feeding a flamewar by replying. Please don't do that. Just flag the egregious comments instead.
I believe you. But if you're going to venture into personally intimate areas like whether someone needs psychotherapy, the burden is on you to clearly disambiguate your intent, because these moves are commonly used to snark at and demean others.
Besides the fact that most people don't have any savings cushion, making this terrible advice for them, you're neglecting the social pressure aspect. Many people feel compelled to overspend on weddings by the expectations of their friends, family, and society. Discussions like this one help to ease that pressure, to allow people to make wedding decisions with less fear of what people will think.
I'm just saying: go for what you want. You don't really have to do anything in life -- it's all up for debate.
If I had plenty of money and nothing more important to spend it on, I'd (personally) go for a crazy fun extravagant wedding. If not, then I wouldn't. If you have no savings, obviously don't spend a ton on a wedding...
Yes, you're right. I don't understand the myopia on this forum when it comes to people spending money irrationally. Human beings are not hyper-efficient savings maximization engines. Every time the story about why "diamonds suck" hits the front page (maybe once a year or so?), the same rounds of patting-on-the-back are exchanged in the comments for rehashing a one-dimensional social commentary that buying diamonds is silly.
Yes of course it's silly! But that's not the point, and it never has been. Once you're at the point of buying a gift that costs far more than its intrinsic, utilitarian value, worrying about its "true scarcity" is just haggling on the details. I purchased an engagement ring for my wife that costed about $30,000. She didn't ask for anything remotely as extravagant as that, but she likes it and I enjoy it for frankly vain reasons. I take immense pleasure out of the reactions it elicits from other people. Despite being very clear-eyed about the artificial scarcity of diamonds and DeBeers marketing, I still bought it because I enjoyed being able to make a frivolous purchase. Personally I don't like spending a lot on things that aren't either experiential or somewhat long-lasting, so I'd never spend much at all on a wedding dress. But I don't begrudge people for spending money inefficiently if they can afford it.
We're all the same species. With very few exceptions, none of us is hyper-vigilant, hyper-rational or hyper-efficient. There are many, many things we idly buy which are artificially scarce or inflated in price. Buying them is not categorically different from buying expensive jewelry under a cultural zeitgeist perpetuated by a global conglomerate. I think most people really don't have much self-awareness about how high their floor of wealth and personal spending is over the ceiling of frugality and efficiency they talk about so much.
50% is considered very good, but in consumer focused America some people might save only 10% of their income (thus for a 100K income to save 30K represents 3 years of savings obliterated).
Tons of words trying to justify what you did. Your choice, your money, who cares.
Making peer pressure of buying some worthless tiny rock, that's the core of the issue here for most including me. People who think they should, other people who look down on those who don't and similar, utterly pathetic behavior (which hints some deeper issues but that's another topic).
Many people here try to be smart with money. Buying diamonds ain't remotely close to that
I can't believe I'm about to defend a marketing slogan. "Most important" doesn't imply "best", in my opinion, I think it implies that this day has the most impact on your life, so make it a good one. Maybe future days will be better because of what happened on this day.
That’s still usually not the most important. For instance even if your partner is the best thing that ever happens to your life, the most important moment will be the proposal or whatever moment you recognize and mutually accept you need each other in your life.
The wedding is the inking of the deal, the most important moment is when you agree to the deal in the first place (and I hope that’s way far before the wedding takes place).
From there, the impact of the wedding is mostly memories, networking and social perception.
The day Bruce Wayne's parents died was the most important day of his life. It is most assuredly not the day he looks back on as the best day of his life.
Saying that you will do a thing and doing a thing do not have equal merit. If I say I'm going to climb everest, you can be sure that the moment which is remembered is the one where I made it to the top (or failed to).
Similarly the birth of a child, not the agreement to try and conceive, is the bit that matters. (Although I'll accept the getting pregnant somewhat)
The act of marriage, of declaring in front of witnesses (friends/family) before the law that you bind yourself to another person in perpetuity is obviously the occasion that is important. Not when you decided to ask. Not when your partner said yes. When you do it.
I agree with your point, to the extent that climbing a mountain or birthing a child have a clear end you can evaluate afterwards to mark if you did it or not.
Mariage in theory only has a beginning, and in our times it’s mainly a promise (signing the paper or vowing in front of costumed people doesn’t mean that much more anymore).
Some people stay together without ever marrying, other sign the papers and do a wedding afterward (a lot of churches will actualy require the papers to be done before), or never. So, if the question is “where did it start ?”, my answer would be at the point where both people agreed to be together.
At that point you are effectively together, already doing what you are saying.
> signing the paper or vowing in front of costumed people doesn’t mean that much more anymore
I fundamentally disagree with this. I think that lots of people view this thing very differently, and to some extent that's just cultural and based on their own views and experiences.
(Basically, I'm going to go with agree to disagree because I think your view is valid albeit not one I ascribe to)
I will say that at 37 years of age i believe my wedding was the most important party i have thrown in my life. With people giving up an entire weekend to fly in to a central location for my wife and I it seemed only fair to make sure everyone had a great time.
It's pretty easy for a wedding and reception to be boring for your guests.
Heh, that's the conundrum about weddings. It's supposed to be about you and your spouse, but the people getting married end up spending all their time stressing out over keeping the guests entertained.
in my experience and I suspect most western countries it's about the bride, but the groom's role is largely ornamental.
You are right about the amount of big-day work though; we had a huge spread of food and booze and I remember eating a couple of crackers and a single glass of wine over the entire evening. This was a very relaxed version of a wedding as well; too much glad-handling to actually have fun.
I can agree with your view, but would add that "fun" and "flawless" are not synonyms. Heck, charge the normal rate for things and I'd be able to afford more fun!
I've had two weddings and attended many many more. 90+% of the time is completely forgotten. The rest is good or bad memories that are largely disconnected from the service/goods quality and the price. I've seen success with plastic cups and failures with crystal.
(Interestingly, the vast majority of the "bad" events came from the wedding officiants, with photographers coming in at number 2, neither of which correlated to "quality")
When people say that, they mean this is the only time you will officially transform into an adult. Still ridiculous, but 18th birthdays are different from other birthdays.
You're not kidding! My wife was a wedding coordinator for nearly a decade and I used to joke with her "What next, wedding water?" Then someone got the bright idea to buy bottled water wholesale, label it with the wedding details and sell the result at a huge markup.
> Yeah, it's upsetting. As soon as merchandise X is prefixed with "wedding", the cost is doubled. Wedding cake? Boom. Wedding napkins? Check. Etc.
i believe one partial cause of this is because there are higher expectations around the quality of goods and services applied for weddings. e.g. if you make fancy decorated cakes to order, what are the odds that the customer or one of their relatives is going to go berserk and refuse to pay if it has some perceived flaw? probably higher if you are making the cake for a wedding compared to some other arbitrary event.
I agree that this has to be a huge factor in the price discrepancy. Even for lavish bar mitzvahs and the like, people don't typically sweat the details the way they do for weddings.
> i believe one partial cause of this is because there are higher expectations around the quality of goods and services applied for weddings.
Based on the comments ive heard from some people in the field (anecdote), this is a rationalization. If they discover that you lied about it not being for a wedding after it is done, paid for, and happy reviews garnered, they will be just as upset, but it us purely for the loss of income, not because of risk.
This is not an exaggeration. Many fields such as makeup, hair, and photography literally charge more for the same work if it is a wedding.
I have a friend who is a makeup artist who gets angry if she discovers a client has hidden the fact that the work is for a wedding. Not because it impacts the work, but solely because it changes the hourly rate she would charge.
Working with weddings is awful and most definitely impacts the work. Everything is high stress and fraught with complicated politics - I was involved in the photography side of things.
Some aspects of a wedding are unnecessary inflated...others aren't or don't have to be. The engagement ring is one that is. It's totally worth diving into what is and isn't a sensible expense, but diamonds are unique in that you can get substitutes or alternatives for far cheaper, far more humanely, and in the case of a synthetic, at least, aren't even visibly different.
A couple of years back my wife (of 27 years) bought a ring for herself with a conspicuous "diamond" on it - I think it cost about £30. Anyone who noticed thought it must have cost tens of thousands and how generous I was.... even though it was fake and she bought it for herself on a whim!
Averages are mostly useless for this kind of things where some people can go crazy on prices. What is the median? Are other deciles available to check?
But I think the most important would be with the cost of a wedding / current capital owned and cost of wedding / revenues ratios.
>"In 2012, when the average wedding cost was $27,427, the median was $18,086. In 2011, when the average was $27,021, the median was $16,886. In Manhattan, where the widely reported average is $76,687, the median is $55,104. And in Alaska, where the average is $15,504, the median is a mere $8,440."
I grew up exclusively attending weddings from the (bottom of the) bottom half of that median and I now routinely interact with people who (seemingly) have only been to weddings from the top half; the disconnect is enormous.
Average or median, the more fundamental problem is that this number is just wrong. Wedding industry statistics are spin from wedding-industry-affiliated companies, who have a tremendous incentive to convince you that it's normal to spend this kind of money on your wedding (as an average U.S. household--make sure you spend more if you are above-average!).
The source here, valuepenguin.com (which is trying to sell you wedding insurance), cites three data sources. Once source is no longer online. The other two sources (TheKnot and Costofwedding.com) claim to have conducted surveys. But The Knot just surveys people on its own website (not representative). Anyone want to venture a guess as to whether a representative number of courthouse-ceremony-and-lunch-buffet-afterwards weddings are counted in these figures?[1]
Meanwhile, Cost of Wedding is "owned and operated by The Wedding Report, Inc." and reports the results of a survey The Wedding Report did. And The Wedding Report has this gem in its methodology description:
We take a bottom up approach to "Average Wedding Cost." The total "Average Cost" is calculated using "Weighted Demand Average (WDA)," which is; average spent times demand equals the weighted demand average. Sum of weighted demand average for all items equals the average wedding cost. Using WDA instead of a summed average gives a better calculation, because it takes into account all items that couples may or may not purchase.[2]
As far as I can tell, this means the average cost is calculated by first determining average costs for each item you might possibly purchase, and then adding them all up as if every couple purchases every item! Umm... no. That's not how you do math.
I don't have much to compare against, but my own wedding was... infinitely small. 2 witnesses, low cost ceremony, marriage license, 2 day honeymoon in a B&B, and a car rental was all had for under $500. (1998). I'd also started a new job that week - my new cubemate had just moved back to the area from out of state. She'd been married the year before, was now going through a divorce, and they were fighting over who was going to handle the $20k debt incurred for their wedding expenses.
The $500 is a bit misleading - each family later threw us a small backyard get together with other friends/family, but we were in different countries, so there was airfare involved later, and the food/catering for each event was probably a couple hundred each (burgers, chips, drinks, cake, etc for a few dozens folks). Including airfare to visit people, and the cost of those events, it was probably still under $3k. I understand it was 20 years ago, but some people were spending $20k even back then, apparently.
I don't think so. I'm currently planning a wedding and while I hope to see the final price is under 30k, it would be very easy to go that high.
Just buying dinner and drinks for 150 people (which seems like a lot, but it's really easy to come up with a list that long) will probably cost you $5000. Then you need another place to put those people and that's another $5000. Then you might want a nice photographer for at least another $2000. Add in music, decorations, lodging, clothing, etc. and you're almost to 30k for a pretty "normal" wedding. Once you start getting higher end food/drinks/venue then the prices go up quickly.
Well, Mister Wonderful put it nicely: "I love weddings. They're one of the only times in a person's life when they're completely irrational about price."
I paid for my own wedding. My wife took the first pass at planning it. We priced out her dream wedding. It was close to $35k. My wife, bless her heart, hates spending money, so it didn’t take much to convince her to dial back expectations.
We started googling for ‘state park weddings’ and found a great park an hour outside of town on the waterfront with a barn. It cost us $500 to book it for the day.
We tracked down the wedding planner from one of the weddings there on instagram. She had only done the one wedding for her friend and didn’t know if she wanted to do it for a living. She offered to do it for us for almost nothing. She completely blew us away, making handmade decorations, and even emceeing for us. We ended up giving her a 100% tip and still feel like we underpaid. We didn’t get a DJ, we just used Spotify. We hired a photography student that was a friend of a friend to do the pictures. We got a roadside bbq joint to cater. I think we spent $3500 for everything including the wedding dress and photographer.
We used the savings to do an around the world trip for our honeymoon. I think after the wedding and honeymoon we ended up with like $2000 of debt on our credit card.
So you can definitely do a low budget wedding that’s still beautiful if you try.
I'll 2nd the "state park wedding" thought. Our county maintains about a dozen historic buildings, all of which can be rented for a small fraction the cost of a commercial venue.
Our ceremony was held at a small 19th century chapel. The reception was at an 18th century mill house. Worked out great.
I'm immensely grateful that my wife is from Hong Kong. Wedding gifts there take the form of cash in a red envelope, and it's normal to get married at a profit. When I explained to her that American weddings are usually held at a considerable loss, her reaction was to set the wedding budget to as close to zero as possible. I think the Hong Kong idea makes much more sense--a newly married couple needs a financial boost, not a debt burden.
Yea I did weddings in both China and the US. (Way cheaper city in China than HK too). US wedding probably cost us $13-15k including plane tickets. Chinese wedding we were way up, but gave all the money to parent. She was lugging a giant bag of cash though.
No really, if a lot of them (gift givers) are older family members (already married). In that case, you will pay back much later when you are that older family, so, at best, it's like a long-term loan when you needed most.
> (especially given about half will end in divorce)
If a person was married in their 20s and 30s but their marriage ends in a divorce in 40s this person spent a very significant part of their life with a companion. It simply doesn't matter that the marriage ended up with a divorse, as long as it lasted and both parties were satisfied, it was a marriage. The fact that the marriage ended up with a divorce doesn't make it less quality, or less worthy to spend more money on.
(My own marriage probably cost $30k - was a decade ago and I forget. But then we had 60 guess, at least half of whom if I employed would cost at least $600 for the day, so the bigger cost may well be lost earnings)
I just do not get why anyone would spend that kind of money on a wedding under circumstances where they have to borrow to do it, which supposedly anywhere from one third to three quarters of people do. If you can afford to pay cash and want a big party, okay, fine, it's your money. I don't have to get the appeal. But, supposedly, some high percentage of people actually go into debt to get hitched. And that's just seriously problematic.
That ancient statistic is very misleading. It is derived from dividing the number of divorces by the number of marriages. A more interesting statistic is the number of people who get married and then divorced compared to the overall population. This is much lower since some people have a lot of divorces.
What is the difference between a diamond and an expensive handbag or other accessory?
If a thing is worth what people pay, how come diamonds are a scam and other items not?
I have a hard time grasping this everytime an anti-diamond article pops up. I can see the logic in not using that kind of money on a ring, but not what's so special about the price/scarcity/fashion of diamonds compared to other luxury goods.
I think the point the author is trying to make is that you can invest your money more wisely if you buy something that retains its value instead of depreciating drastically the moment you close the transaction.
Just another guy pointing out WHY they're a ripoff. Most luxury goods are "ripoffs" (from a financial point of view). Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them and the experience, and because the item (in comparison to a non luxury item) is still much better.
Nothing wrong with that in my view. Personally I don't share they view they're a ripoff, but to each their own.
Have you ever bought a mechanical watch? I have, and I loved the experience -- from researching and exploring it, to visiting a few jewellers, to getting a good deal, to finally getting the item. I look forward to the day when I can buy my (to be) wife amazing pieces of jewellery, regardless of the price.
Yet plenty of people love buying luxury items for the feeling it gives them
For me that is the huge rip-off next to the financial part: for a lot of these luxury items the extra money doesn't get you proportionally more or better functionality nor quality (2 things which are imo actually worth money since they give you something practical and useful back). It's often more about looks and how it feels. But do the people really care about the looks themselves, or rather how they are perceived by others? And is that really worth pursuing? And does buying a feeling really work and how long does this feeling last? Also is the feeling 'real' or is it just made-up in the end because culture tells you it's like that?
Why would it be a rip off? You act as if 'overcharging' for something is always a rip off. If I'm walking in a desert without water.. I'll likely be billing to pay (a lot) more than if I had a bottle with me.
Luxury goods often have more price elasticity compared to other items, but they still deliver value to the people buying them. Not that you need an entire Louis Vuitton collection, but splurging can be fun. It's really not your call to make whether spending on luxury items is worth pursuing -- depends on how high your income and wealth is.
Also: perception is everything in the world. Someone who is well dressed is generally taken more seriously than the same person in a hoodie and wearing sweatpants.
You act as if 'overcharging' for something is always a rip off.
Syntactically those 2 terms indeed have a similar feel to them - 'over' doesn't have a good connotation in 'overcharging'. But I'm not sure why you think I consider them to always be equivalent, I don't.
they still deliver value to the people buying them
It's exactly the worth of that (perceived) value I was questioning.
It's really not your call to make whether spending on luxury items is worth pursuing -- depends on how high your income and wealth is.
You're not claiming I cannot take part in this discussion if my income isn't high enough, are you :] Anyway, rest assured: my income and wealth are such that I could buy more than a bunch of VT bags or rings with diamonds or whatever. Even more I'm no stranger to having bought overpriced luxury items in a distant past so I kind of know what I'm questioning here. Ha, it's exactly the reason I'm questioning it. But even if it were not why would I not be allowed to ask questions about other's motives?
Also: perception is everything in the world
Correction: a part of the world. A part which is way too big for my liking and for which I consider myself extremely fortunate I don't have to deal with it often. I want to be taken serious for who I am and not because of what I look like. Also: one can look well dressed (to whatever standard) in clothes which don't cost a dime so there's a fine line between 'well dressed' and 'expensively dressed so it must be well'.
Signaling is also a strong component of luxury; you let everyone know that you have means, good tastes, and that you belong to such and such circle. Some brands don't even bother to deliver superior quality products, they just "sell the signal" -- the term "ripoff" then feel adequate.
>Louis Vuitton bags are scarce by manufacture but this is not artificial.
Are you suggesting that LV bags are scarce because for the 4000$ price range they can't figure out a way to make more bags? I would make the suggestion that their scarcity is entirely atrificial to inflate prices.
> I would make the suggestion that their scarcity is entirely artificial to inflate prices.
You're suggesting people pay $4,000 for a LV bag because LV is limiting their supply and they're difficult to find? I don't think that's the case. They're expensive because only LV can produce bags with their logo, and they're charging as much as people are willing to pay.
Artificial scarcity might be the case for a special edition bag, or a Nike or Adidas shoe produced in a unique color with a limited run of 100 products. But, that's not the core of their business or the source of their overall higher prices.
You're right, but to elaborate it's a government granted monopoly via trademark. Yes, you can get an identically made bag for far cheaper, but it can't (legally at least) have the LV logo on it. Which is why so many luxury brands are essentially plastered in logos. The logo has no value beyond its ability to signal the wealth of its owner. So essentially rich people use an overpriced trademark for conspicuous consumption purposes.
Natural diamonds are a scam because there is no way for them to be visibly distinguished from lab grown diamonds. There's no equivalent to a trademarked logo that distinguishes them from their cheaper competitors. Meaning, even if you think conspicuous consumption to display wealth is a worthwhile activity, diamonds don't even achieve that purpose anymore!
I'm not sure you read the article. It's not about the wearing of diamonds in itself, but more the shady business practices of diamond companies and the awful conditions of diamond mines.
Handbags don't get quite as many people killed in the process of their manufacture and shipment. There's a real problem with conflict diamonds. Even if you buy one with a non-conflict pedigree, you're still supporting the price.
The other thing is: sentimental value. People have been proposed to with diamond rings and the truth is, they're not looking for make a profit from said diamond, if the value drops to nothing it's still a symbol of their marriage and a basis for the beginning of memories leading up to their marriage and so on. Sentimental value is worth more than diamonds.
I say this having proposed with a diamond ring knowing I may be somewhat annoyed if I found out it was worthless tomorrow, but it wont take it away, it's not like we plan on selling it off someday or something.
There is no difference. This article might as well be about expensive handbags or colleges, but it so happens it's not. The underlying idea is to rethink what you spend your money (i.e. your time) on so that you get the most out of it for you.
For me the underlying principles boil down to two main ideas:
* Priorities. I personally value a great laptop over a great rug and a nice piano over a nice couch, so I will adjust my spending accordingly. This works within categories as well; I would value what the stone is/does materially over what the stone is/does culturally.
* Consider diminishing returns. When making a buying decision I look at what is available in the category and what the value for money curve looks like. A phone that costs 400 bucks is a significant upgrade over one that is 200, but adding another 200 won't bump the specs as much. This is not to say I'd never buy the more expensive stuff, but only if I prioritize it accordingly.
One difference is that nobody thinks that they should invest vast amounts of money in handbags, with the explicit promise that handbags are eternal and an implied promise that you will be able to convert it back to money at a trade in of roughly 1 to 1, if you need to.
De Beers have spent most of a century convincing people that a large diamond is a mandatory part of an engagement proposal. You mightn't be affected by this propaganda campaign, but a lot of people are.
Lots of other luxury goods are bullshit, but none of them are marketed as an essential part of a normal life. Nobody feels under pressure to buy a Louis Vuitton handbag or a Rolex watch just to get engaged. De Beers have effectively re-invented the dowry, with the significant difference that unlike diamonds, cattle or gold keep their resale value.
Diamonds have pretty effectively been marketed across the class spectrum as something you have to buy to get engaged, to the point of the "two month (salary) rule" being a thing. Other luxury goods don't have that.
Luxury goods prices are largely related to the cost of production in the form of quality rather than any other form of scarcity. The question they answer is 'what is the very best product possible?' Luxury leather bags for example have a huge degree of craftmanship (which is why fakes are mostly lousy and very distinguishable). This is why they become a well-known brand in the first place - it's a mark of quality in design and production.
Rimowa is an example where they have had to constantly innovate in order to maintain a quality edge. Service is another area - if you buy a Hermes silk tie, you can get it cleaned and pressed for life for free at any Hermes shop in the world (cleaning and pressing silk ties is incredibly hard and they often get destroyed by dry cleaners).
The problem occurs when the brand itself becomes the cash cow as a result of this consistency in quality, and businesses start to exploit this. They will usually slap their brand on an outsourced production line product and charge a premium. Occasionally that might be justified by the product having a great distinguishing design to compensate but often it's not the case - and that's where we start to think of it as a bit of a scam. An example is Church's Shoes. From 1873, they were around the highest quality brogues in the world available at any price (short of bespoke shoes) and were handmade in workshops in Northampton. In the 1990s Prada bought them and started transferring production of all but a top end line to Italy, where the shoe manufacturing was partly automated and inferior. Unless you are buying the handmade bench grade shoes, you are now paying extra for the name and probably being a bit of a mug unless you are very attached to the particular design. Now that brand is tarnished for the high end shoe market and dependent on consumer ignorance for the rest. (As a sidenote, a lot of the craftspeople who worked for Church's before the takeover moved to the other Northampton shoe makers who used to be considered lesser quality and some of those brands are slowly moving into the luxury end as a result of the quality improvements.)
I will very happily buy a nobrand or knockoff where there is no functional difference or the price tradeoff doesn't justify the difference, but often top end goods can justify their price.
One big difference is that many men feel obligated to buy expensive diamond engagement rings to their pretenders to "show his love", i.e., the three salary rule[1].
This kind of cultural/social pressure was built from a long history of, one could say brilliant, marketing campaigns.
It's a valid point but diamonds are definitely a bit different. Luxury fashion items are differentiated. Most of the time they don't have identical substitutes. And when they do they might be hard to get and illegal.
Diamonds are much more pure in how few effects make for its value.
The point is - I don't think anti-diamond crusaders are being randomly selective.
> What is the difference between a diamond and an expensive handbag or other accessory?
They're technically equivalent, but not equal.
Both are artificially scarce, don't have a high intrinsic or practical value relative to other products that serve equivalent practical purposes. Both are produced by very large, sometimes monopolistic entities.
Diamonds are different because:
1. Normal fashion -vs- concerted De Beers ad campaign
Demand for bags is largely governed by fashion, which—while it may confound some, and is certainly artificially controlled/steered by large commercial entities—is at least a somewhat organic thing that:
- (a) has a long human tradition
- (b) has some variance over time
- (c) at least slightly various across the general mainstream population according to personal taste
Demand for diamonds on the other hand is a recent, deliberate invention by a single entity and is quite consistent across the relative diversity of individuals in (western) mainstream populations.
2. Scale of external social pressure
Social pressure to have a fashionable, authentic, labelled bag is relatively high for a certain subset of the population, it pales in comparison to multiple generations of family members relentlessly obsession over the most important day of your life on your behalf.
No difference between a diamond and an expensive handbag, inherently. Diamonds are just a very illustrative & extreme example of that.
For example, engagement rings. The custom puts an alarming number of people into financial bother for no "real" reason. The fact that both the custom and the value of the gem are "fake" or at least fictional is easier to demonstrate for diamonds than it is with gold, Gucci handbags or Harvard education.
Gold is at least valuable in the money sense. It has a market price. Diamond pricing is much more opaque. The custom was also invented in recent memory, unlike the custom of costly weddings which can also be an unreasonably burdensome but non-negotiable bit of culture. Both are customs. Both are invented. Both can be bad. Both (as industries) have a get-in-debt economic norm fattening it. But the diamond example is just more illustrative. More fake.
Lots of industries have horrible labour practices in countries where they can, but diamonds are an illustrative case for this too..
At least with a Chanel bag you can often sell it for the price you paid (with inflation) if you keep good care of it for years. I know this anecdotally. Since there is no scarcity in diamonds you are lucky if you get 50% back.
Well, I do understand the point of an engagement ring - what I am completely flummoxed by is the idea that you should spend a huge chunk of money on one.
I got my wife an eternity ring as an engagement ring - not because of any rules but because we both liked it and it wasn't very expensive. Been married 27 years so far so it seems to have worked! ;-)
A nice engagement ring does not require a diamond though. It does not require 3 months of salary.
So what _is_ the point of an engagement ring? To show love? I can do that without a ring. To show I'm taken? I've got another ring for that. We both do.
You are implying then that the point is to pay a lot of money and your future wife should be happy that you are paying a lot of money for a useless thing, just to show you did it. This is a bad ground for a relationship IMHO. Because otherwise the physical qualities (how it looks) is the whole point.
Well it's like vegans. Except here instead of animal suffering, it's human suffering; which can give a greater sense of importance to the cause. And in turn, it would make people against diamonds feels justified to be more aggressive.
>People who are against diamonds seem extremely aggressive about making sure other people agree with them and validate their opinions.
People who profit obscenely from false scarcity, public relations manipulation and civil war seem way, way, way more aggressive about making sure the profits keep flowing.
Out of curiosity, what's all the fuss with engagement rings in the first place? When me and my wife got engaged, I gave her nothing (nor did she expect anything), just asked her to marry me and she agreed, we kissed and that was it.
We did, however, made wedding rings, which together were about $1300, but that's because they were made out of gold.
I assume peer pressure of some sort. When my now wife was telling all her friends she was engaged, the first thing they all asked was "let me see the ring!"
It's seems to be mostly a US thing (it doesn't seem common in Western Europe either). It boggles the mind how spending several monthly salaries on a ring became a solidly embedded tradition over there.
You seem to believe the commercials more than most Americans do. The vast majority of people don't spend that much on an engagement ring (I'm pretty sure the commercials said "two months'" not "several" anyway--but still, that's nuts, no one I know spent anywhere near that much). An engagement ring is pretty entrenched as a tradition, sure, but not the boggling part about the expense.
She's even had random strangers (like a store checkout clerk or hotel front desk) ask to see it closer and then compliment what a good job I did (not tooting my own horn, I and others think it's just as silly as you do, but if you want the girl you get her what she wants).
What I meant was, if you love someone you want to make them happy, and in the grand scheme of things wasn't much over the course of a lifetime committment. I can see how it was worded gave the wrong impression.
I'm in Poland, and I know three couples that got engaged the past year. All of them have diamond engagement rings. It's a small reference point, but clearly some people care in Central Europe, and they all seemed excited to "see the ring".
When my ex and I got engaged, in Waterford, Ireland, all of her friends asked to see the ring and turn it around her finger. It was some sort of tradition.
Our engagement rings trace back to Middle Ages Europe, where they arose to serve a notice function (this person is taken). Diamonds became associated with them in the Victorian era, and became more widespread when ordinary people started copying the trappings of nobility (diamond engagement rings, college, etc.).
I was told a story that the concept originated before this, as a subtle way to identify acolytes of a certain religious order or place of worship in ancient times. The phrase used was "temple prostitutes". I've searched a bit and had trouble finding a source to back this up, though. If anyone has one or can debunk it, I'd be happy either way.
There's an important difference between criticizing a tradition, and criticizing individuals. The tradition, in this case, was greatly magnified by the parties who have a vested interest in people spending a lot of money on rings. That aspect of it conveys little benefit to the people who partake in it, or, as others have already noted, is even negative by encouraging people to spend too much of their income at a time in their life when they really ought to be focused on saving and making efficient use of their funds.
Rituals are good. A gift exchange can be great. A visible symbol is important to some people (I wear a wedding band and I like it). But the current tradition encourages something financially foolish for most modern couples.
This is the result of marketing of the De Beers corporation, who ran large campaigns about "Diamonds are Forever" and how important an expensive engagement ring was. That stuck quite well.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers#Marketing
Got married, skipped much of the shady symbolism associated with marriage. Asking permission from the father, like your wife is a piece of chattel, no. 9 month engagement to make sure the baby is yours, no. White wedding dress stating virginity, no. Engagement ring, no.
We need to update many crazy symbols, they've just become too offensive. The longer we wait the crazier they become.
Engagement rings are very rare in France, I don't know personally any couple who did it and even the wikipedia page on it is very small, unless you are from the upper class or an international couple, it's pretty rare.
Strange, maybe you are coming from a big city or something similar? It's very unusual around my place, I only know of one distant cousin who did it and it made people raise some eyebrows because it was judged as posh.
I can't speak of Germany but in France engagement rings are very rare and more something of the upper class, out of all the weddings I've done, none of them did that.
I wouldn't say that engagement rings are upper class, but it's true it's only in certain groups. In my peer group, it's common, for example my brother bought one for his fiancée and my mom has one. But in all case they were gifted at the time of the engagement, not at the wedding.
People who buy engagements rings are simply spending lots of money as an expression of love and providing visible proof of that to other people. I don't think that's a great idea but everybody's different. So the value of diamonds is somewhat irrelevant.
Nope, they're victims of succesful marketing campaign by De Beers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagement_ring#20th_century
In 1938, the diamond cartel De Beers began a marketing campaign that would have a major impact on engagement rings. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the price of diamonds collapsed.[25] At the same time, market research indicated that engagement rings were going out of style with the younger generation. Before World War II, only 10% of American engagement rings contained a diamond.[26] While the first phase of the marketing campaign consisted of market research, the advertising phase began in 1939. One of the first elements of this campaign was to educate the public about the 4 Cs (cut, carats, color, and clarity). In 1947 the slogan "a diamond is forever" was introduced.[27] Ultimately, the De Beers campaign sought to persuade the consumer that an engagement ring is indispensable, and that a diamond is the only acceptable stone for an engagement ring.
Yeah big time. But you can say that about a lot of things. Point I'm making is that if people want to consume ridiculous things the current system we live under kind of favours that. If it isn't diamonds then it's going to be some other crap that requires other people to live lives of utter drudgery. That's kind of the point. If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a Jimmy Choo stamping on a human face forever.
It is not about the object itself, it is about respecting your partner's values. If an expensive ring means a lot to your partner, then it is definitely important for your marriage.
The same can be said for extramarital sex. Assuming proper precautions are taken to avoid medical issues, rationally, it is not a big deal. And yet, besides a small minority of couples who embrace open marriage, this is hugely important.
If requiring some compromise warrants not getting married, no one will ever get married.
It's also a measure of the value of your partner's personality. A SO which needs me to communicate in $$$ is the last thing I'd ever want in my life. It's a glaring symptom of a shallow personality.
Unfortunately this is one of those American traditions we love to hate but are for the moment powerless to change. Your significant other may not care but societal pressure and expectation is hard to get around. She has a mother, sisters, friends etc. It is the same reason an expensive handbag makes absolutely no sense to a man but matters so much to a woman. It is confounding.
In other words, as with most successful marketing campaigns (sadly), you can't dispel its effects simply by saying "it's a marketing campaign".
(Edit/add: Though, contradicting my own argument a bit, I think point 2 and 4 - that there was deliberate effort to establish it as a "luxury item" and that today it's used to fund all kinds of atrocities - could be able to change demand of diamonds: They also change the things that wearing a diamond would imply about the wearer.
The Mossanite argument makes no sense because one of the points of wearing a diamond is to be seen as "my significant other is rich and/or dedicated enough to gift me this" - however, no-one wants to be seen as a helpless brainwashed sheep or a supporter of war crimes.)
And say goodbye to the girl of your dreams, who was really looking forward to showing her friends the "rock" on her finger and hearing them ooh and ahh over it.
Even if she doesn't leave you over this, unless you somehow married a Hackernews you've set up the image in her head that you're a skinflint who isn't willing to provide for your wife and it will affect your relationship in negative ways. Is your autism that strong that you will put a pedantic commitment to your own head logic and fighting the evil forces of marketing above your wife's feelings? If so, maybe you don't deserve to be married.
Yes, this post missing the point that I as a diamond buyer already know this but it will not stop me from purchasing more diamonds.
In a hypothetical world, if a diamond could be bought for $10K and sold for $10K, where is the risk? Then it's no longer for only rich, others can take a loan from a bank and purchase diamonds.
When I pay for a diamond, I don't pay for its intrinsic value.
I pay for diamonds because other people around me feel they are expensive and you've to be rich enough to set your money on fire (like you do while purchasing a diamond). It's a signal for others that I am "fuck you money" rich.
The very same reason for which I purchase a sports car, yes a sports car does have some advanced engineering but the resale value is not same.
As long as diamond purchase price stays up I'll keep buying. Only thing I want is that no other people are able to acquire them for cheap when I am willing to pay a premium. (I hate price discrimination, i've also worked hard for my money, why should anyone get them cheap?)
Please stop treating me like a victim of De Beers campaign.
No you purchase the diamond because of De Beers marketing techniques influencing people around and peer pressure.
Its manufactured status symbol for the purpose of enriching exploitative diamond industry that strives to maintain its monopoly at all cost. The reality of diamond industry is far less polished than their PR material:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_the_diamond_in...
When I pay for a diamond, I don't pay for its intrinsic value. I pay for diamonds because other people around me feel they are expensive and you've to be rich enough to set your money on fire (like you do while purchasing a diamond). It's a signal for others that I am "fuck you money" rich.
This may have been a sarcastic post (?) but why do you care if other people think you have "fuck you money"? That just makes you look intellectually weak and poor imho.
But here's one thing that "fuck you money" won't buy: class.
Agree, except I think it's more that it makes him (hazarding a wild guess it's a guy!) sound like a total jerk, an empty loser and an epic twat, probably with a tiny dick.
> This may have been a sarcastic post (?) but why do you care if other people think you have "fuck you money"? That just makes you look intellectually weak and poor imho.
But here's one thing that "fuck you money" won't buy: class.
Why should I care if that makes me look intellectually weak and poor imho? I am from old banker family, I love diamonds and I collect them. I gave you other reasons for which I collect all these diamonds.
If you ask me in an interview, I obviously won't mention these views and give you a politically correct answer. But this is the internet, I am using anonymity, where is the problem with that?
I am just sharing my views, I don't care about your judgment.
> But here's one thing that "fuck you money" won't buy: class.
I am born into it, there is no reason for me to buy.
I've always found it fascinating how powerful DeBeers' marketing is, considering that in nature gems like rubies and sapphires are much rarer than diamonds yet are worth considerably less.
I know I will get a hell of downvotes for this, but "Brainwashed" term can also be applied to people trading Bitcoins? Some people agreed that it is valuable and gave some tokens a huge value and its a market now.
Wrong. The DeBeers monopoly doesn't exist anymore and the market sets the prices on diamonds. Nearly all diamonds are priced through auctions now a days.
Well, I guess it could be true that some people are "brainwashed" to trade bitcoin. But I think there are some differences between the two.
First, diamond is not in itself useful. While it some industrial uses, that is not where its value comes from. The value of diamond is the result of misinfomation about its rarity and an extensive marketing campaign. On the other hand, BitCoin (or rather, blockchain) promised to be a distributed exchange, and more or less acheieves that. And although it is debateable whether its current valuation is reasonable, at least that grows organically from its use.
The value BitCoin and diamond are both influenced by their limited availability. Diamond supply is tightly controlled by a corperation, but there is no guarantee that corperation will continue to have this controll indefinitely. On the other hand the limit on the number of bitcoins is more rigid and will only break if someone took controll of at least half of the network.
Wrong. The belief that DeBeers is a diamond monopoly and controls the market is outdated. In fact, DeBeers is now only the 2nd largest diamond miner, after Alrosa, a Russian mining company.
If I might ask, why was this flagged? It was last discussed in 2016 [0], and though it needs a [2006] tag, it is otherwise a really valid and interesting post.
Anybody know anything about this "Moissanite" thing?
I find it interesting that in the 100+ comments here, there's no mention of the item the linked website so heavily promotes, yet I personally never heard of until now. One of the reasons I love HN is that usually relevant knowledge and experience will come out of woodworks and share their wisdom - so, anybody ever heard of "Moissanite"? :)
It's a stone engineered to be a diamond replacement, as the article mentions. From there, what would you like to know? (My wife's a jeweler, so I'll probably have to forward the harder question, but as study-buddy for her gemologist education I know at least some trivia :)
It's... a different stone. You can usually tell cut diamonds and moissanites apart with the naked eye once they reach a sufficient size. (Moissanites have a telltale rainbow sparkle, diamonds don't. Large moissanites have a color tinge, "good" diamonds don't)
You can debate which one looks better - I prefer diamonds with an old european cut, because they're spectacular :) - but ultimately, it's a rock. You buy a pretty bauble because you like how it looks. There's very little intrinsic value here.
I always thought of the engagement ring tradition as a financial safety-net for a woman, in a culture where it was customary that only men work and women stay home. Woman in such setup has no "her" money, but if she owns an expensive ring that she can easily sell that gives her some level of freedom, if needed.
There are many people crafting software with category theory, refactoring it 10 times a week, using whatever latest JS framework is the trend, then asking for a price.
Most of it might mean absolutely nothing to a customer. But you think the price you charge is fair.
Don't conflate the efforts you put, with that actual value of your product.
Many software might have the same utility as of a diamond and may have the same price as a diamond.
228 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 253 ms ] threadSotheby's jewelly auctions. Know what you want, buy stones and ignore settings (they'll be dated and you can sell the metals), and know you're the only retail customer in a room full of diamond merchants.
Another option: get a house deposit and work on building an eventual family with your woman rather than provide her with trinkets.
The value is almost guaranteed to appreciate over the course of our marriage (which strikes me as romantic) -- and if there is an unfortunate divorce, she has a chunk of valuable land to sell instead of a useless rock.
Average U.S. wedding cost $30k in 2014, while the average engagement ring was $5600, or 19% of the cost [0]
https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-cost-of-wedding
While reducing/eliminating the cost of the ring is a big saving, the entire wedding industry is a shocking way to start your marriage (especially given about half will end in divorce)
Yes: diamonds, jewellery, mechanical watches etc are all bad value for money. People don't buy them because they're bad value. They buy them because they like wearing them, and women buy jewellery because it makes them feel pretty.
That's life. It's fine throwing money away sometime.
Citation needed. Seriously, mechanical watches can be a great investment if you know what you are buying.
Sure if you have the money. The problem is that most people don’t and spend what would be a down payment on a house on complete bullshit. It’s a terrible way to start a marriage and likely leads to higher rates of divorce.
Too much of this is similar to "The child of a proper family marries at a certain age and gets a proper wedding".
Fight the power! Be the change!
> Too much of this is similar to "The child of a proper family marries at a certain age and gets a proper wedding".
Getting married "at a certain age" (i.e. young) isn't necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, I'd argue that being a parent (or grandparent!) while you're still young, active, and in good health is a wonderful thing. It's blindly succumbing to social pressure to make financially disastrous decisions that must be avoided. Go ahead an have a wedding party too, but do it on your terms.
Be it most blatantly the shaming of older unmarried women in Chinese society or more practically arranged marriages of young girls in rural middle eastern areas. Honor killings are just the crassest and most publicized method to uphold the second tradition, but if you read reports of women who went through this, the first part is always brutal social pressure by the direct family including "asking" and begging by their own mothers. Never underestimate the viciousness of parents who think they are pushing their children to do the "right" thing and are not above making this their first priority.
If I caught someone in my family pulling crap like continually pressuring spouses to spend above their means and force them into debt with that line of argument they will likely have to reevaluate whether they might be better off without me in their life. A lot of people sadly only realize this after they see family members trying to do the same thing to the next generation. Differently put, depending on how much grandma doesnt understand the word "no stop it" she wont be coming over for the holidays anymore.
(I agree with you).. but back to the original commenter's point about the behavior, versus the object of the behavior:
Do you believe that eliminating (or sufficienctly discouraging through education or contrary social pressure) diamonds and/or expensive weddings would sufficiently eliminate this spending above ones means? Or would that spending just shift to other targets, such as different jewelry (which even the article refers to in talking about spending more money on setting instead) or experiences?
Having your fiance wanting a diamond ring is a different problem then your mother in law pushing you to spend 30k on your wedding to show off to the neighbors.
Advertisement based spending is just another set of problems when it develops without outside social pressure. Its the difference between your wife needing to show off to her mother and girlfriends, wanting to show off. or you two agreeing about how it might be spend best.
Just to point out though, while the example of diamond rings is focused on the female spouse, this isnt a issue that only happens with her. Pick another example and you could switch the roles.
The last option, of discussing how to spend the money, is simply about the state of your relationship. If you two agree that spending 30k is worth the fun of taking a few month off for vacation, all the best to you. Just do it because you want to, not because you think you have to.
There's a difference between shopping until you drop, and giving the woman you love the occasional gift to show that you love and appreciate her.
Yes, it's not required, you don't _NEED_ expensive jewellery or fancy weddings, but if you have excess money that you are not investing, why not?
On the flipside, I also like getting nice gifts. Don't you?
Just tell someone you love them and do nice things for them and be there for them. It's free.
I'm into mechanical watches. Just because I find them interesting, not for show. I'm not brainwashed, but heck, getting one I really want from someone I love would be close to the ultimate gift. Do I need it? Of course not. Do I expect it? Of course not.
Like the two month salary rule for an engagement ring would be a ludicrous thing to expect of a man. Run from that woman.
Now you're just being casually sexist. If you want to judge people for how they choose to celebrate their mutual affection that's fine. So diamonds aren't your thing, thanks for sharing. But let's not go down the rabbit hole of litigating one gender's susceptibility over another's.
I don't want to go down that rabbit hole just to save my own time. But the genders definitely have their susceptibilities.
You should look into getting a therapist to talk through whatever has soured your outlook on life to this point of bitter cynicism.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If I had plenty of money and nothing more important to spend it on, I'd (personally) go for a crazy fun extravagant wedding. If not, then I wouldn't. If you have no savings, obviously don't spend a ton on a wedding...
Yes of course it's silly! But that's not the point, and it never has been. Once you're at the point of buying a gift that costs far more than its intrinsic, utilitarian value, worrying about its "true scarcity" is just haggling on the details. I purchased an engagement ring for my wife that costed about $30,000. She didn't ask for anything remotely as extravagant as that, but she likes it and I enjoy it for frankly vain reasons. I take immense pleasure out of the reactions it elicits from other people. Despite being very clear-eyed about the artificial scarcity of diamonds and DeBeers marketing, I still bought it because I enjoyed being able to make a frivolous purchase. Personally I don't like spending a lot on things that aren't either experiential or somewhat long-lasting, so I'd never spend much at all on a wedding dress. But I don't begrudge people for spending money inefficiently if they can afford it.
We're all the same species. With very few exceptions, none of us is hyper-vigilant, hyper-rational or hyper-efficient. There are many, many things we idly buy which are artificially scarce or inflated in price. Buying them is not categorically different from buying expensive jewelry under a cultural zeitgeist perpetuated by a global conglomerate. I think most people really don't have much self-awareness about how high their floor of wealth and personal spending is over the ceiling of frugality and efficiency they talk about so much.
If not, 30K might represent 6-12 months of personal runway to build your own business.
50% is considered very good, but in consumer focused America some people might save only 10% of their income (thus for a 100K income to save 30K represents 3 years of savings obliterated).
Making peer pressure of buying some worthless tiny rock, that's the core of the issue here for most including me. People who think they should, other people who look down on those who don't and similar, utterly pathetic behavior (which hints some deeper issues but that's another topic).
Many people here try to be smart with money. Buying diamonds ain't remotely close to that
Yes, but that doesn't mean we have to actively make the situation worse.
Do you really want to enrich debeers? Buy a 2K wedding cake?
Alternatively I would get a custom piece designed.
It's astonishing how easy it is to fall into the trap of "it's just a one-time event", "it's the most important day of my life", etc.
Implying that its all downhill from there. I find this such a depressing way of looking at life.
The wedding is the inking of the deal, the most important moment is when you agree to the deal in the first place (and I hope that’s way far before the wedding takes place).
From there, the impact of the wedding is mostly memories, networking and social perception.
The day Bruce Wayne's parents died was the most important day of his life. It is most assuredly not the day he looks back on as the best day of his life.
Similarly the birth of a child, not the agreement to try and conceive, is the bit that matters. (Although I'll accept the getting pregnant somewhat)
The act of marriage, of declaring in front of witnesses (friends/family) before the law that you bind yourself to another person in perpetuity is obviously the occasion that is important. Not when you decided to ask. Not when your partner said yes. When you do it.
(The party afterwards is sheer madness etc etc)
Mariage in theory only has a beginning, and in our times it’s mainly a promise (signing the paper or vowing in front of costumed people doesn’t mean that much more anymore).
Some people stay together without ever marrying, other sign the papers and do a wedding afterward (a lot of churches will actualy require the papers to be done before), or never. So, if the question is “where did it start ?”, my answer would be at the point where both people agreed to be together.
At that point you are effectively together, already doing what you are saying.
I fundamentally disagree with this. I think that lots of people view this thing very differently, and to some extent that's just cultural and based on their own views and experiences.
(Basically, I'm going to go with agree to disagree because I think your view is valid albeit not one I ascribe to)
It's pretty easy for a wedding and reception to be boring for your guests.
You are right about the amount of big-day work though; we had a huge spread of food and booze and I remember eating a couple of crackers and a single glass of wine over the entire evening. This was a very relaxed version of a wedding as well; too much glad-handling to actually have fun.
15% of the weddings I've been to didn't have a groom
I've had two weddings and attended many many more. 90+% of the time is completely forgotten. The rest is good or bad memories that are largely disconnected from the service/goods quality and the price. I've seen success with plastic cups and failures with crystal.
(Interestingly, the vast majority of the "bad" events came from the wedding officiants, with photographers coming in at number 2, neither of which correlated to "quality")
"But you only turn 18 once!"
Which is true for every birthday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4QRf-HKJ8E&t=8m20s
Is it this clip? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUH6oRkWm-Q
Get an air compressor and bottle the air at the wedding. Sell bottles of the stuff so people can catch a whiff of the big day later.
i believe one partial cause of this is because there are higher expectations around the quality of goods and services applied for weddings. e.g. if you make fancy decorated cakes to order, what are the odds that the customer or one of their relatives is going to go berserk and refuse to pay if it has some perceived flaw? probably higher if you are making the cake for a wedding compared to some other arbitrary event.
Based on the comments ive heard from some people in the field (anecdote), this is a rationalization. If they discover that you lied about it not being for a wedding after it is done, paid for, and happy reviews garnered, they will be just as upset, but it us purely for the loss of income, not because of risk.
I have a friend who is a makeup artist who gets angry if she discovers a client has hidden the fact that the work is for a wedding. Not because it impacts the work, but solely because it changes the hourly rate she would charge.
I would ask my wife if she wanted a fake diamond and new car or a real diamond.
Weddings could be casual ordeals without frills and rigid formalities but they function as a status symbol of sorts.
Averages are mostly useless for this kind of things where some people can go crazy on prices. What is the median? Are other deciles available to check?
But I think the most important would be with the cost of a wedding / current capital owned and cost of wedding / revenues ratios.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/weddings/2013/06/average_...
I grew up exclusively attending weddings from the (bottom of the) bottom half of that median and I now routinely interact with people who (seemingly) have only been to weddings from the top half; the disconnect is enormous.
The source here, valuepenguin.com (which is trying to sell you wedding insurance), cites three data sources. Once source is no longer online. The other two sources (TheKnot and Costofwedding.com) claim to have conducted surveys. But The Knot just surveys people on its own website (not representative). Anyone want to venture a guess as to whether a representative number of courthouse-ceremony-and-lunch-buffet-afterwards weddings are counted in these figures?[1]
Meanwhile, Cost of Wedding is "owned and operated by The Wedding Report, Inc." and reports the results of a survey The Wedding Report did. And The Wedding Report has this gem in its methodology description:
We take a bottom up approach to "Average Wedding Cost." The total "Average Cost" is calculated using "Weighted Demand Average (WDA)," which is; average spent times demand equals the weighted demand average. Sum of weighted demand average for all items equals the average wedding cost. Using WDA instead of a summed average gives a better calculation, because it takes into account all items that couples may or may not purchase.[2]
As far as I can tell, this means the average cost is calculated by first determining average costs for each item you might possibly purchase, and then adding them all up as if every couple purchases every item! Umm... no. That's not how you do math.
[1] "Respondents were recruited throughout the year from TheKnot.com membership." https://xogroupinc.com/press-releases/the-knot-2017-real-wed...
[2] https://www.theweddingreport.com/index.cfm/action/home/view/...
The $500 is a bit misleading - each family later threw us a small backyard get together with other friends/family, but we were in different countries, so there was airfare involved later, and the food/catering for each event was probably a couple hundred each (burgers, chips, drinks, cake, etc for a few dozens folks). Including airfare to visit people, and the cost of those events, it was probably still under $3k. I understand it was 20 years ago, but some people were spending $20k even back then, apparently.
Just buying dinner and drinks for 150 people (which seems like a lot, but it's really easy to come up with a list that long) will probably cost you $5000. Then you need another place to put those people and that's another $5000. Then you might want a nice photographer for at least another $2000. Add in music, decorations, lodging, clothing, etc. and you're almost to 30k for a pretty "normal" wedding. Once you start getting higher end food/drinks/venue then the prices go up quickly.
We started googling for ‘state park weddings’ and found a great park an hour outside of town on the waterfront with a barn. It cost us $500 to book it for the day.
We tracked down the wedding planner from one of the weddings there on instagram. She had only done the one wedding for her friend and didn’t know if she wanted to do it for a living. She offered to do it for us for almost nothing. She completely blew us away, making handmade decorations, and even emceeing for us. We ended up giving her a 100% tip and still feel like we underpaid. We didn’t get a DJ, we just used Spotify. We hired a photography student that was a friend of a friend to do the pictures. We got a roadside bbq joint to cater. I think we spent $3500 for everything including the wedding dress and photographer.
We used the savings to do an around the world trip for our honeymoon. I think after the wedding and honeymoon we ended up with like $2000 of debt on our credit card.
So you can definitely do a low budget wedding that’s still beautiful if you try.
Our ceremony was held at a small 19th century chapel. The reception was at an 18th century mill house. Worked out great.
If a person was married in their 20s and 30s but their marriage ends in a divorce in 40s this person spent a very significant part of their life with a companion. It simply doesn't matter that the marriage ended up with a divorse, as long as it lasted and both parties were satisfied, it was a marriage. The fact that the marriage ended up with a divorce doesn't make it less quality, or less worthy to spend more money on.
(My own marriage probably cost $30k - was a decade ago and I forget. But then we had 60 guess, at least half of whom if I employed would cost at least $600 for the day, so the bigger cost may well be lost earnings)
Very much depending on some key demographics[0], and also assumes that all marriages start with an expensive engagement and wedding.
[0]: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divor...
https://studentloanhero.com/featured/wedding-costs-survey-co...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/one-third-of-couples-go-in...
That ancient statistic is very misleading. It is derived from dividing the number of divorces by the number of marriages. A more interesting statistic is the number of people who get married and then divorced compared to the overall population. This is much lower since some people have a lot of divorces.
If a thing is worth what people pay, how come diamonds are a scam and other items not?
I have a hard time grasping this everytime an anti-diamond article pops up. I can see the logic in not using that kind of money on a ring, but not what's so special about the price/scarcity/fashion of diamonds compared to other luxury goods.
I think the point the author is trying to make is that you can invest your money more wisely if you buy something that retains its value instead of depreciating drastically the moment you close the transaction.
Nothing wrong with that in my view. Personally I don't share they view they're a ripoff, but to each their own.
Have you ever bought a mechanical watch? I have, and I loved the experience -- from researching and exploring it, to visiting a few jewellers, to getting a good deal, to finally getting the item. I look forward to the day when I can buy my (to be) wife amazing pieces of jewellery, regardless of the price.
For me that is the huge rip-off next to the financial part: for a lot of these luxury items the extra money doesn't get you proportionally more or better functionality nor quality (2 things which are imo actually worth money since they give you something practical and useful back). It's often more about looks and how it feels. But do the people really care about the looks themselves, or rather how they are perceived by others? And is that really worth pursuing? And does buying a feeling really work and how long does this feeling last? Also is the feeling 'real' or is it just made-up in the end because culture tells you it's like that?
Luxury goods often have more price elasticity compared to other items, but they still deliver value to the people buying them. Not that you need an entire Louis Vuitton collection, but splurging can be fun. It's really not your call to make whether spending on luxury items is worth pursuing -- depends on how high your income and wealth is.
Also: perception is everything in the world. Someone who is well dressed is generally taken more seriously than the same person in a hoodie and wearing sweatpants.
Syntactically those 2 terms indeed have a similar feel to them - 'over' doesn't have a good connotation in 'overcharging'. But I'm not sure why you think I consider them to always be equivalent, I don't.
they still deliver value to the people buying them
It's exactly the worth of that (perceived) value I was questioning.
It's really not your call to make whether spending on luxury items is worth pursuing -- depends on how high your income and wealth is.
You're not claiming I cannot take part in this discussion if my income isn't high enough, are you :] Anyway, rest assured: my income and wealth are such that I could buy more than a bunch of VT bags or rings with diamonds or whatever. Even more I'm no stranger to having bought overpriced luxury items in a distant past so I kind of know what I'm questioning here. Ha, it's exactly the reason I'm questioning it. But even if it were not why would I not be allowed to ask questions about other's motives?
Also: perception is everything in the world
Correction: a part of the world. A part which is way too big for my liking and for which I consider myself extremely fortunate I don't have to deal with it often. I want to be taken serious for who I am and not because of what I look like. Also: one can look well dressed (to whatever standard) in clothes which don't cost a dime so there's a fine line between 'well dressed' and 'expensively dressed so it must be well'.
They are a luxury good because the inly seller makes them so, without a real motive (they are not scarce).
Louis Vuitton bags are scarce by manufacture but this is not artificial.
>Louis Vuitton bags are scarce by manufacture but this is not artificial.
Are you suggesting that LV bags are scarce because for the 4000$ price range they can't figure out a way to make more bags? I would make the suggestion that their scarcity is entirely atrificial to inflate prices.
You're suggesting people pay $4,000 for a LV bag because LV is limiting their supply and they're difficult to find? I don't think that's the case. They're expensive because only LV can produce bags with their logo, and they're charging as much as people are willing to pay.
Artificial scarcity might be the case for a special edition bag, or a Nike or Adidas shoe produced in a unique color with a limited run of 100 products. But, that's not the core of their business or the source of their overall higher prices.
In short, LV bags are simply not scarce.
I'm really not
Natural diamonds are a scam because there is no way for them to be visibly distinguished from lab grown diamonds. There's no equivalent to a trademarked logo that distinguishes them from their cheaper competitors. Meaning, even if you think conspicuous consumption to display wealth is a worthwhile activity, diamonds don't even achieve that purpose anymore!
I say this having proposed with a diamond ring knowing I may be somewhat annoyed if I found out it was worthless tomorrow, but it wont take it away, it's not like we plan on selling it off someday or something.
There is no 'expensive handbag' cartel enforcing artifical scarcity and preventing resale of used handbags.
For me the underlying principles boil down to two main ideas:
* Priorities. I personally value a great laptop over a great rug and a nice piano over a nice couch, so I will adjust my spending accordingly. This works within categories as well; I would value what the stone is/does materially over what the stone is/does culturally.
* Consider diminishing returns. When making a buying decision I look at what is available in the category and what the value for money curve looks like. A phone that costs 400 bucks is a significant upgrade over one that is 200, but adding another 200 won't bump the specs as much. This is not to say I'd never buy the more expensive stuff, but only if I prioritize it accordingly.
Usually there's way less war, slave and child labor involved in the making of a handbag.
(Besides even the worst sweatshop is probably better than the best mine).
Lots of other luxury goods are bullshit, but none of them are marketed as an essential part of a normal life. Nobody feels under pressure to buy a Louis Vuitton handbag or a Rolex watch just to get engaged. De Beers have effectively re-invented the dowry, with the significant difference that unlike diamonds, cattle or gold keep their resale value.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/18/richemont-d...
Nobody is saying your designer handbag is naturally rare. They explicitly say "we produce it in a small number so that it's exclusive".
Rimowa is an example where they have had to constantly innovate in order to maintain a quality edge. Service is another area - if you buy a Hermes silk tie, you can get it cleaned and pressed for life for free at any Hermes shop in the world (cleaning and pressing silk ties is incredibly hard and they often get destroyed by dry cleaners).
The problem occurs when the brand itself becomes the cash cow as a result of this consistency in quality, and businesses start to exploit this. They will usually slap their brand on an outsourced production line product and charge a premium. Occasionally that might be justified by the product having a great distinguishing design to compensate but often it's not the case - and that's where we start to think of it as a bit of a scam. An example is Church's Shoes. From 1873, they were around the highest quality brogues in the world available at any price (short of bespoke shoes) and were handmade in workshops in Northampton. In the 1990s Prada bought them and started transferring production of all but a top end line to Italy, where the shoe manufacturing was partly automated and inferior. Unless you are buying the handmade bench grade shoes, you are now paying extra for the name and probably being a bit of a mug unless you are very attached to the particular design. Now that brand is tarnished for the high end shoe market and dependent on consumer ignorance for the rest. (As a sidenote, a lot of the craftspeople who worked for Church's before the takeover moved to the other Northampton shoe makers who used to be considered lesser quality and some of those brands are slowly moving into the luxury end as a result of the quality improvements.)
I will very happily buy a nobrand or knockoff where there is no functional difference or the price tradeoff doesn't justify the difference, but often top end goods can justify their price.
This kind of cultural/social pressure was built from a long history of, one could say brilliant, marketing campaigns.
[1] https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-new-rule-for-engagement...
Diamonds are much more pure in how few effects make for its value.
The point is - I don't think anti-diamond crusaders are being randomly selective.
They're technically equivalent, but not equal.
Both are artificially scarce, don't have a high intrinsic or practical value relative to other products that serve equivalent practical purposes. Both are produced by very large, sometimes monopolistic entities.
Diamonds are different because:
1. Normal fashion -vs- concerted De Beers ad campaign
Demand for bags is largely governed by fashion, which—while it may confound some, and is certainly artificially controlled/steered by large commercial entities—is at least a somewhat organic thing that:
- (a) has a long human tradition
- (b) has some variance over time
- (c) at least slightly various across the general mainstream population according to personal taste
Demand for diamonds on the other hand is a recent, deliberate invention by a single entity and is quite consistent across the relative diversity of individuals in (western) mainstream populations.
2. Scale of external social pressure
Social pressure to have a fashionable, authentic, labelled bag is relatively high for a certain subset of the population, it pales in comparison to multiple generations of family members relentlessly obsession over the most important day of your life on your behalf.
For example, engagement rings. The custom puts an alarming number of people into financial bother for no "real" reason. The fact that both the custom and the value of the gem are "fake" or at least fictional is easier to demonstrate for diamonds than it is with gold, Gucci handbags or Harvard education.
Gold is at least valuable in the money sense. It has a market price. Diamond pricing is much more opaque. The custom was also invented in recent memory, unlike the custom of costly weddings which can also be an unreasonably burdensome but non-negotiable bit of culture. Both are customs. Both are invented. Both can be bad. Both (as industries) have a get-in-debt economic norm fattening it. But the diamond example is just more illustrative. More fake.
Lots of industries have horrible labour practices in countries where they can, but diamonds are an illustrative case for this too..
I got my wife an eternity ring as an engagement ring - not because of any rules but because we both liked it and it wasn't very expensive. Been married 27 years so far so it seems to have worked! ;-)
As I like to joke with my wife, it’s not a successful marriage until one of us dies.
As for rings, we didn’t do an engagement ring, and my wife’s ring contains a sapphire mined from our home state.
So what _is_ the point of an engagement ring? To show love? I can do that without a ring. To show I'm taken? I've got another ring for that. We both do.
Those rings cost about 20$ together
I can't imagine making a website about any of my jewellery preferences (short of ethical, which isn't mentioned prominently here).
Their principle problems are price and marketing.
People who profit obscenely from false scarcity, public relations manipulation and civil war seem way, way, way more aggressive about making sure the profits keep flowing.
We did, however, made wedding rings, which together were about $1300, but that's because they were made out of gold.
Why overcomplicate things? :)
That's the sadest thing I've read today.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...
Seems like diamond rings are another BS pushed by marketing and swallowed by the public.
Why criticize the way other people choose to celebrate their engagement?
Rituals are good. A gift exchange can be great. A visible symbol is important to some people (I wear a wedding band and I like it). But the current tradition encourages something financially foolish for most modern couples.
Why overcomplicate things? :)
Oh yeah cause of culture, the same reason people like gold or people like diamonds or bitcoin.
All people i know in Germany have just plain gold rings.
It is way nicer because it is more a symbol of commitment than a show of wealth.
Those never get out of style, can hardly be damaged and if need be can be replaced cheaply.
Diamonds are beautiful, and in my opinion much nicer than a boring solid gold ring. Still a scam, but a pretty one!
Even when you search on google with the two languages, you see that difference clearly in the illustrations.
Weird.
One comment above talked about $5600 for an engagement ring in average in the US.
That is quite a difference indeed!
The same can be said for extramarital sex. Assuming proper precautions are taken to avoid medical issues, rationally, it is not a big deal. And yet, besides a small minority of couples who embrace open marriage, this is hugely important.
If requiring some compromise warrants not getting married, no one will ever get married.
https://cre.fm/cre218-diamanten
(Edit/add: Though, contradicting my own argument a bit, I think point 2 and 4 - that there was deliberate effort to establish it as a "luxury item" and that today it's used to fund all kinds of atrocities - could be able to change demand of diamonds: They also change the things that wearing a diamond would imply about the wearer.
The Mossanite argument makes no sense because one of the points of wearing a diamond is to be seen as "my significant other is rich and/or dedicated enough to gift me this" - however, no-one wants to be seen as a helpless brainwashed sheep or a supporter of war crimes.)
Even if she doesn't leave you over this, unless you somehow married a Hackernews you've set up the image in her head that you're a skinflint who isn't willing to provide for your wife and it will affect your relationship in negative ways. Is your autism that strong that you will put a pedantic commitment to your own head logic and fighting the evil forces of marketing above your wife's feelings? If so, maybe you don't deserve to be married.
In a hypothetical world, if a diamond could be bought for $10K and sold for $10K, where is the risk? Then it's no longer for only rich, others can take a loan from a bank and purchase diamonds.
When I pay for a diamond, I don't pay for its intrinsic value. I pay for diamonds because other people around me feel they are expensive and you've to be rich enough to set your money on fire (like you do while purchasing a diamond). It's a signal for others that I am "fuck you money" rich.
The very same reason for which I purchase a sports car, yes a sports car does have some advanced engineering but the resale value is not same.
As long as diamond purchase price stays up I'll keep buying. Only thing I want is that no other people are able to acquire them for cheap when I am willing to pay a premium. (I hate price discrimination, i've also worked hard for my money, why should anyone get them cheap?)
Please stop treating me like a victim of De Beers campaign.
This may have been a sarcastic post (?) but why do you care if other people think you have "fuck you money"? That just makes you look intellectually weak and poor imho.
But here's one thing that "fuck you money" won't buy: class.
Why should I care if that makes me look intellectually weak and poor imho? I am from old banker family, I love diamonds and I collect them. I gave you other reasons for which I collect all these diamonds.
If you ask me in an interview, I obviously won't mention these views and give you a politically correct answer. But this is the internet, I am using anonymity, where is the problem with that?
I am just sharing my views, I don't care about your judgment.
> But here's one thing that "fuck you money" won't buy: class.
I am born into it, there is no reason for me to buy.
What a self-annihilating affirmation this is! A fucking gem :) You're rich and hilarious!
A bigger one. Spend the same amount of money on an existing stone at Sothenby's or Christies.
(Yes, there is lots of manipulation in the latter, but it's still not comparable to diamonds.)
First, diamond is not in itself useful. While it some industrial uses, that is not where its value comes from. The value of diamond is the result of misinfomation about its rarity and an extensive marketing campaign. On the other hand, BitCoin (or rather, blockchain) promised to be a distributed exchange, and more or less acheieves that. And although it is debateable whether its current valuation is reasonable, at least that grows organically from its use.
The value BitCoin and diamond are both influenced by their limited availability. Diamond supply is tightly controlled by a corperation, but there is no guarantee that corperation will continue to have this controll indefinitely. On the other hand the limit on the number of bitcoins is more rigid and will only break if someone took controll of at least half of the network.
It seems to me that the same strategy is curently used in the crypto ecosystem.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12944464
I find it interesting that in the 100+ comments here, there's no mention of the item the linked website so heavily promotes, yet I personally never heard of until now. One of the reasons I love HN is that usually relevant knowledge and experience will come out of woodworks and share their wisdom - so, anybody ever heard of "Moissanite"? :)
It's... a different stone. You can usually tell cut diamonds and moissanites apart with the naked eye once they reach a sufficient size. (Moissanites have a telltale rainbow sparkle, diamonds don't. Large moissanites have a color tinge, "good" diamonds don't)
You can debate which one looks better - I prefer diamonds with an old european cut, because they're spectacular :) - but ultimately, it's a rock. You buy a pretty bauble because you like how it looks. There's very little intrinsic value here.
Ignoring the advertisement at the end, this article sums things up pretty well: https://www.diamonds.pro/education/sell-diamonds/
Most of it might mean absolutely nothing to a customer. But you think the price you charge is fair.
Don't conflate the efforts you put, with that actual value of your product.
Many software might have the same utility as of a diamond and may have the same price as a diamond.