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> Look at say rings where personal skill plays a larger role than the advancements in technology.

What about advancements metallurgy? And to use an adjacent example, cold-pressed steel techniques increase the number of places steel can be used. (See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold-formed_steel#Hot-rolled_v...).

More often that not, technology enables trade-offs to be made that couldn't be before. Making something cheaper and more fragile does lose something, service life, and so on. In exchange the cheaper thing is now used more widely. Perhaps this more widespread use unlocks something that only a few expensive yet high-quality units could not. Think of smartphones and the resulting network effects.




18k Gold jewelry has been using 18 parts gold, 3 parts copper, and 3 parts silver for a long time.

In theory sure we could probably improve on it, but it works.




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