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MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

worksonmymachine.substack.com

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Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#341

Post by troupo »

diggan wrote: post #332
troupo wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Previously, many companies gated these APIs but with the MCP AI hype they are incentivized to expose what you can achieve with APIs through an agent service. Why would they be incentivized to do that if they survived all the previous hype waves and still have access gated? > user wants automations on data and actions on a service they are already using, How many users want that? Why didn't companies do all this bef…

> Why would they be incentivized to do that if they survived all the previous hype waves and still have access gated? Because they suddenly now don't want to be left out of the whole AI hype/wave. Is it stupid? Yes. Can we still reap the benefits of these choices driven by stupid motivations? Also yes.

> Because they suddenly now don't want to be left out of the whole AI hype/wave.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44405491 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44408434

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#342

Post by pyman »

zarathustreal wrote: post #301
pyman wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're seeing a wave of hype marketing on YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, where people with big followings create posts or videos full with buzzwords (MCP, vibe coding, AI, models, agentic) with the sole purpose of promoting a product like Cursor, Claude Code or Gemini Code, or get people to use Anthropic's MCP instead of Google's A2A. It feels like 2 or 3 companies have paid people to flood the internet with c…

They’re not being paid, at least not directly. They don’t need to be. “Educational” “content” is a play to increase the personal profile as a “thought leader.” This turns into invitations to conferences and ultimately funnels into sales of courses and other financial opportunities

Hype marketing can look spontaneous, but it's almost always planned. And once the momentum starts, others jump in. Influencers and opportunists ride the wave to promote themselves

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#343

Post by ricardobeat »

candiddevmike wrote: post #46
ricardobeat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s the whole point - it’s APIs we did not have. Now app developers are encouraged to have a public, user friendly, fully functional API made for individual use, instead of locking them behind enterprise contracts and crippling usage limits.

Do you have an example of a company who previously had an undiscoverable API now offering a MCP-based alternative?

I do have one: Atlassian now allows connecting their MCP server (Jira et al) for personal use with a simple OAuth redirect, where before you needed to request API keys via your org, which is something no admin would approve unless you were working specifically on internal tooling/integrations.

Another way to phrase it is that MCP normalizes individual users having access to APIs via their clients, vs the usual act of connecting two backend apps where the BE owns a service key.

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#344

Post by tomqueue »

alangpierce wrote: post #200

> What if you just... removed the AI part? Maybe I'm not fully understanding the approach, but it seems like if you started relying on third-party MCP servers without the AI layer in the middle, you'd quickly run into backcompat issues. Since MCP servers assume they're being called by an AI, they have the right to make breaking changes to the tools, input schemas, and output formats without notice.

Exactly my thoughts after reading the article. I am surprised that so few have pointed this out because it entirely invalidates the article’s conclusion for any serious usage. To stay at the USB-C example: it‘s like plugging in a Toaster into a monitor but the Toaster changes its communication protocol every time it gets reconnected.

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#345

Post by tomqueue »

dgrabla wrote: post #335

If MCP gets used this way I see big trouble when people hardcode stuff and then the provider updates the endpoints. MCP does not have versions as the list-tools is a living document, you are supposed to fetch and read the current version. AI would be totally fine with it because it would be able to reason the change and adapt, but the hardcoded app is going to break badly.

Exactly my thoughts after reading the article. I am surprised that so few have pointed this out because it entirely invalidates the article’s conclusion for any serious usage. To stay at the USB-C example: it‘s like plugging in a Toaster into a monitor but the Toaster changes its communication protocol every time it gets reconnected.

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#346

Post by sureglymop »

mkagenius wrote: post #250
sureglymop wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But in order to do that you run the MCP server for that API locally. Is it really worth doing that just to have the additional /list-tools, when it is otherwise basically just a bridge/proxy?

Not quite sure I get what you mean by 'MCP server for that API locally'. Locally you just need a consumer/client, isn't?

Check out the overview in the MCP spec. Locally you run the "host application" (e.g. ollama or Claude Desktop). Then you have clients which are inside the host application and maintain 1:1 connections with servers.

Then you have servers, which are separate processes running on your machine that the clients connect to. For example, you program a server to "manipulate your local filesystem" in python and then run it locally.

Most MCP servers are written for python or node and to install and use them you run them locally. They then are like a "bridge" to whichever API they abstract.

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#347

Post by lazyasciiart »

Mtinie wrote: post #196
lazyasciiart wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this then that - a zapier type glue provider.

Minor chronological point but Zapier is an IFTTT-type glue provider. IFTTT was announced Dec. 14, 2010 and launched on Sept. 7. 2011. Zapier was first pitched Sept. 30, 2011 and their public beta launched May 2012.

But zapier is easily Google-able and therefore useful as a reference name even if the commenter hasn't heard of it.

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#348

Post by fennecbutt »

Omg I wish people would just shut up about mcp already.

It's not magic, it's just smashing tool descriptions into your prompt, and the implementation sucks for various reasons, including there being no standard for tool use tags, nor the mcp spec including a common way of handling function call responses.

It's literally just "json into prompt & then it's all you buddy!" batteries NOT included, lmao

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#349

Post by fennecbutt »

pyman wrote: post #294
ggambetta wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trumpet Winsock! Brings back memories :)

I think we're seeing a wave of hype marketing on YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, where people with big followings create posts or videos full with buzzwords (MCP, vibe coding, AI, models, agentic) with the sole purpose of promoting a product like Cursor, Claude Code or Gemini Code, or get people to use Anthropic's MCP instead of Google's A2A. It feels like 2 or 3 companies have paid people to flood the internet with c…

Nah it's the same motivation as all the gen z tiktok kids. It's all for clout.

People write those medium articles wanting engagement/clout/making it big/creating a brand.

Re: MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

#350

Post by mycall »

ggambetta wrote: post #269
alexpotato wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the days of Winsock. For those that don't remember/don't know, everything network related in Windows used to use their own, proprietary setup. Then one day, a bunch of vendors got together and decided to have a shared standard to the benefit of basically everyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsock

Trumpet Winsock! Brings back memories :)

Trumpet + PPP on a university library mainframe was first experience on the internet.
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