[prmoustache]

Natural stone are expensive and a luxury items. They are not the alternative to engineered stone really. Engineered stone are bought by middle-class, and thus in much higher number. The alternative being usually plain wood.

[sellmesoap]

While natural stone is more expensive, it also requires sealer (wax/polymer + VOCs) is more prone to cracking or breaking during transport or use (put a hot pan on the counter and find out) and we do cut it on site with a angle grinder when nessisary. Engineered stone generates a ton of microplastics when being fabricated, and it wouldn't surprise me if it had endocrine disrupting chemicals. I'm a cranky old web dev, looking for my next dev/ops job, email in bio :)