That actually does bring up an interesting point of contrast that may be worth exploring. There are a couple things in particular that come to mind.
With the Titanic, there were survivors. There was another ship close enough to help out. The location of the wreckage was very well known. However, they didn't have the technology available today. If the Titanic disaster were to happen today, there would be very well-known GPS coordinates for the location where it went down. we'd have the equipment necessary to search the ocean floor and find it. All this together, it probably would have been found and explored in a matter of a week or so.
Also, with the Titanic, I think there was a little more closure to the story because so much was known. Survivors could give their accounts of what happened. The fate of the ship was known. If somebody didn't make it back with the survivors, they could be pretty well presumed dead. I wholeheartedly believe that MH370 did go down in the ocean somewhere, and that there's no way there would be any survivors left. The only way to have any idea of the story and know for sure that it did crash into the ocean, is to find the wreckage and recover whatever data they can.
Finally, I almost wonder how much of the difference today vs. back then has to do with the internet and highly-accessible news and information about all the small details of the search. Families have been on an emotional roller-coaster, because they get their hopes up about some piece of debris that is seen in the ocean near where they are searching. But so far, it has only ended in disappointment because none of these things end up actually related to the plane. Now, I think some of this disappointment is their own fault. They should be more skeptical/realistic about how slim the chances are that any of these things are actually related at all. But I think some of this is also due to the media and the availability of a vast amount of information. 50 years ago, we wouldn't be hearing about every last piece of floating junk they find in the water and such.
I want to know why they're still searching. Who really stands to benefit? My family was saying that there's just a human need to know with things like this. If you look at the things about the flight that we do know, it isn't difficult to conclude that the plane did, in fact, go down into the ocean somewhere. And if that happened, the chances of any survivors still existing are basically zero at this point. It's unfortunate, yes, but people should just accept it and move on. But the only way for that to happen is for the search to be officially called off and for the media to just leave it be.