The first time I heard about this, I wondered why we didn't just blast desert sand at itself to rough it up to give it better properties. Sure it takes some energy but the sand mafia probably isn't getting cheaper.
That would probably cause the sand to become smoother.
> I wondered why we didn't just blast desert sand at itself to rough it up to give it better properties.
The grain size of desert (or most maritime) sand is already far too small, and if you blast it to pieces it will get even smaller - too small to be used for concrete.
It turns we’re all in the pocket of big sand. Which I guess is better than having big sand in our pockets, as that would scratch up our phones. Then, we’d need new phones, or at least new phone screens… either way, big sand wins!