Penguins: Now officially fucked!

[Faithfree]

Geologist hat on: they are only reporting the discovery of kimberlite. Only some kimberlite pipes contain diamonds, and only some of those are economic. To be economic they usually have to be in easy to access areas with at least some infrastructure.

[mistermack]

"Real" diamonds are worth a heap big more than artificial diamonds.
In fact, I think they dig for "real" diamonds using drills tipped with artificial diamonds.
Penguins: At least as doomed as Rationalia.

I think I know what you mean, but don't agree with your wording.
Man-made diamonds ARE real diamonds. As are the small ones used in drills.
Artificial diamonds are something else. A variety of different minerals, which are hard to tell from real diamonds.

But man-made diamonds are widely accepted as real diamonds in every sense.

There is a difference in value between man-made, and natural. But I believe there is an overlap, because there are a lot of crap natural diamonds, full of flaws, whereas man-made ones are usually made without the flaws. A lot of natural diamonds are got at, and artificially ''improved'' using drilling, and filling of flaws, and even experts can be taken in by the tricksters, and pay far too much for diamonds that have been ''got at''.
You can also get a much bigger variety of colours, in man-made ones, that you can't get in natural ones.

Personally, I don't know what people see in them. Especially, as the actual ''artificial'' ones, that are not actual diamonds, can be just the same, for all tests, except when tested by expert jewellers.
And they ARE much cheaper.

[Mysturji]

My "wording" was an attempt at levity.
Generally, people regard something that has been forming for millions of years in the bowels of the Earth as intrinsically "better" and more "valuable" than something that someone just cooked in a lab last week, even though they can now make industrial diamonds of superior "quality" (i.e. flawless, and with higher density & hardness) than "natural" diamonds.
Economics is a branch of psychology.