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MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

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Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

#121

Post by latexr »

57473m3n7Fur7h3 wrote: post #117
latexr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prediction: this will go the same way as RSS. Meaning what? RSS remains ubiquitous. It’s rare to find a website which doesn’t support it, even if the owners don’t realise it or link to it on their page. RSS remains as useful as it ever was. Even if some websites only share partial post content via RSS, it’s still useful to know when they are available (and can be used as an automation hook to get the full thing). R…

The built-in RSS reader in Firefox was removed. (But extensions exist to add RSS reader to Firefox.) Google killed Google Reader. (Other products exist you can use instead.) Facebook removed support for RSS feeds. (You can replace it with third party tools or API calls.) It’s not dead dead, but it did seem to lose some momentum and support over time on several fronts.

> It’s not dead dead

It’s not dead, period. Not dead, dead dead, dead dead dead, or any other combination.

Yes, some integrations were removed, but on the whole you have more apps and services for it than ever. The death of the behemoth that was Google Reader was a positive there.

Maybe fewer people are using it, but the technology itself is fine and continues to be widely available and supported by most websites, which was the point.

Maybe Facebook and Instagram don’t have RSS access, but you can’t even navigate two pages on them without an account, anyway. They are closed to everything they don’t control, which has nothing to do with RSS.

Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

#122

Post by deepdarkforest »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #120
jacquesm wrote: post #113

Prediction: this will go the same way as RSS. Companies don't like you to be in control of how you use their data.

Indeed. Though I guess a better example would be: it'll go the same way as REST APIs (which happen to be fundamentally the same thing as MCP anyway). Remember the time when REST was the new hot thing, everyone started doing API-first design, and people thought it'll empower people by letting programs navigate services for them programmatically? Remember when "mashups" were the future? It all died before it could come…

I don't know about that. Zapier and automation apps were huge before agents, or even for integrations for Slack. There is definitely a big portion of tech products that have mutual benefits by providing good APIs to be in the same bubble

Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

#123

Post by TeMPOraL »

deepdarkforest wrote: post #122
TeMPOraL wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Though I guess a better example would be: it'll go the same way as REST APIs (which happen to be fundamentally the same thing as MCP anyway). Remember the time when REST was the new hot thing, everyone started doing API-first design, and people thought it'll empower people by letting programs navigate services for them programmatically? Remember when "mashups" were the future? It all died before it could come…

I don't know about that. Zapier and automation apps were huge before agents, or even for integrations for Slack. There is definitely a big portion of tech products that have mutual benefits by providing good APIs to be in the same bubble

Yes, that's my point - Zapier is exactly where this is heading. Automation as a service, requiring you to enter into contracts with everyone, and limited only to what said services feel like enabling. This is the opposite of what we hoped APIs will be, and the opposite of what people hope MCP will be.

Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

#125

Post by dominicrose »

qayxc wrote: post #98
mupuff1234 wrote: post #75

I still don't understand MCP. If according to all the AI companies soon AI will replace devs than why bother with MCP?

Lock-in. LLMs are today's hammer: everything looks like a nail now. LLMs are super useful for certain tasks (generating boilerplate code, generating tests, providing examples for API usage, summarising etc.), but the demo to me just illustrates a solution in desperate search for a problem. "Create A TODO" using a chatbot? That's an example gone wrong in so many ways and goes to show what happens if you start with a s…

A todo list is already a productivity tool and not an essential one. When I hear about productivity I can't help but think "but be productive doing what?"

What do we have to do that's so important we need AI, and not a chat AI but AI on steroids (supposedly)?

Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

#126

Post by stuartjohnson12 »

bobmcnamara wrote: post #52
throwanem wrote: post #8

> If I asked you to build a table and gave you a Home Depot you probably would have a harder time than if I gave you a saw, a hammer and some nails. I doubt that, first and not least because Home Depot stocks lumber.

Home Depot also sells tables.

import table

table()

Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

#129

Post by bayindirh »

SquareWheel wrote: post #116
jacquesm wrote: post #113

Prediction: this will go the same way as RSS. Companies don't like you to be in control of how you use their data.

Isn't RSS a smashing success? I changed readers after Google Reader died, but otherwise, my feeds have been working seamlessly for nearly 20 years. I rarely meet a site with updates that doesn't support RSS.

Until recently, many sites had RSS functionality because the infrastructure they are using provided some of automated RSS generation. Also, many sites stopped providing "full-content" RSS feeds, but gave pointers to the website itself to drive clicks.

"Real" RSS gives you the whole content. The blog platform I use does this, for example. They are not greedy people and just want to provide a blog platform so, they use the thing as it's supposed to be.

Re: MCP-B: A Protocol for AI Browser Automation

#130

Post by throwanem »

bobmcnamara wrote: post #52
throwanem wrote: post #8

> If I asked you to build a table and gave you a Home Depot you probably would have a harder time than if I gave you a saw, a hammer and some nails. I doubt that, first and not least because Home Depot stocks lumber.

Home Depot also sells tables.

Not good ones. But in any case the spec was not to provide a table, was it?
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