@MeanwhileinCanada I thought about this a bit overnight, and I concluded that it's the novelty aspect that attracts people.
Billionaire, Titanic, submarine, disappeared: four words that haven't been seen in a story before.
...not that people aren't crass, jingoistic and obsessed with the rich and famous.
But even anti-capitalists such as myself see this as a story on our radar: "obsessive consumption has terrible consequences".