Wow, absolutely brilliant. I can't believe this article popped up on HN's front page tonight. I just got back from looking at engagement rings with my girlfriend.

I've known about this monopoly for a while, and so has she. Heck, one of the first movies we watched together when we first started dating 7 years ago was Blood Diamond. Here's the conversation we had while in the jewellery store tonight.

Me: "Sweety, I really don't want to buy you a diamond. I really would rather buy you something that at least has some more value associated with it, like a sapphire."

Her: "Well, I've always pictured a diamond ring. That's what everyone gets."

Me: "Well, what do you like about the diamond that the sapphire doesn't give you?"

Her: "I like the sparkle."

Me: "Ok, that's fair. What about moissanite? (Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite) It's supposedly even more sparkly and brilliant than diamonds."

Her: "What's it made of?"

Me: "You know how diamond is just carbon? Moissanite is silicon and carbon in the same type of crystal structure."

Her: "And it's natural?"

Me: "Well, it can occur naturally, but it's extremely rare. So the ones you buy are usually created in a lab, but are more brilliant than a diamond, but actually cost less. I can apparently get a 1.5 carat stone for $800."

Her: (annoyed) "I don't want something fake!"

Me: "Oh, so it's not about the sparkle then?"

I swear, De Beers has probably pulled off the greatest marketing stunt in the history of humanity. The fact that it's so ingrained in our minds, to the point where a smart, educated, and informed person like my girlfriend still wants a diamond even after knowing all the issues with them, is fascinating.

Honestly, as a community of people in the startup ecosystem, we could stand to learn a thing or two here.

P.S. If you understand the thing she is trying to buy, you don't have to sell her a ring at all.

There turns out to be an arbitrage opportunity in social status for, say, middle or upper-middle class Japanese women. Anybody can buy rocks, but nobody can buy a man vacation, so a man who demonstrates ability to take long vacations must be able to buy virtually unlimited amounts of rocks. Regardless of whether I can afford rocks, I can afford long vacations quite easily, so we announced a small rock and a long honeymoon on the same day.

It's absolutely unreal how effective that was. All relevant stakeholders believe I'm unreasonably well-off. Ironically, this caused them to sharply upgrade their estimations of what the (quite modest) ring must be worth.

and here is the opposite effect, the new windows 8 logo:

http://i50.tinypic.com/15oidfb.jpg

A clean, simple, elegant logo, completely ruined by the honking TM and (R) injected by the lawyers. The bizarre presence of two separate legalese-related sigils on a single logo makes it impossible to miss. Also makes it clear who is running the place.