I'm really bad with this in games. I even hoarded iron back when I still played Minecraft simply because it was a resource I couldn't infinitely produce.
Cobblestone generator = use only cobblestone tools
Didn't he drop a hard R while saying that only white people should vote? I am as anti-cancel cultures the next rational person, but you deserve to be detached from more than just a video game if you pull that in a public forum.
Lol I still do this cobblestone tools are free iron just doesn't feel consistent enough. Though I am trying a new mining strategy we will see if that improves it.
Get a tool smith and buy tools. Emeralds are super easy to get in bulk with master fisherman and fletchers. Selling sweet berries to butchers is another great source.
Or sell iron from an iron farm or melons and pumpkins from one of those farms. Trade with librarians for mending books, never break a netherite item again!
Villagers are human like mobs you trade with. Emeralds are used as a currency. Most fletchers buy sticks from you. The more you do business with a villager, the more trade options they have. High level fisherman buy a boat (5 wooden planks) for one emeralds.
Tool smiths start selling high quality enchanted iron and diamond tools once they are mid level. Enchantments do things like increase durability (unbreaking), improve speed (efficiency), and many other upgrades. Once you have a tool smith that sells say diamond axes, anything else is pointless to keep beyond an emergency backup. Cost isn't a factor because the aforementioned selling of sticks and boats mean emeralds are a cheap and renewable resource.
I don’t want to tell you how to play your game, but I will say that diamond is well worth the effort, even if you don’t want to get it the easy way with villagers. The amount of time you will save using diamond will more than make up for the time spent mining, and make you resent all the time you’ve wasted using stone. Just dig a tunnel down to y -59 and strip mine, you never need to see a mob or get lost in a cave if you don’t want to. A normal level 30 enchant with efficiency 4 and unbreaking 3 will last a very long time, and can be repaired infinitely if you get mending on it.
I would compare it to something like drinking instant coffee all the time and finally tasting a properly brewed, high quality coffee. Or only buying cheap shoes all the time and then investing in a proper pair of very comfortable and well made ones. Or playing video games on a 5 year old hand me down Mac then upgrading to a decent gaming pc.