The future? MCP is fighting even to have a present.
The Future of MCPs
81–90 of 90 posts
Re: The Future of MCPs
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
ERC20 stood the test of time and is ubiquitous today. Who knows what MCP looks like in a decade?
yeah even with its extreme flaws of requiring two transactions per transfer, and not having any way of the destination reacting to the transfer without another transaction.
Re: The Future of MCPs
#83If LLMs are so smart, why do they need a custom "MCP" format to what's commonly known as a normal API? Why can't they just call normal APIs? Extending this thought: why would there be any difference between offering data behind an API, and offering data behind a "MCP api"? At the end of the day, the underlying data will be the same (weather, stock market info, logs, whatever), it seems LLMs just needs this to be "sta…
> If LLMs are so smart, why do they need a custom "MCP" format to what's commonly known as a normal API? Why can't they just call normal APIs?
LLM's _can't_ just call APIs, because all they can do is generate text. The LLM can _ask_ you to run some code, but it has no ability to run code directly. MCPs are basically a way for LLMs to signal intent to make an API call, along with a list of white listed APIs, and documentation for using them, and preloaded credentials with whatever permissions you want to give them.
Re: The Future of MCPs
#84Re: The Future of MCPs
#85If you're sold on MCP, what was your "wow" moment? I've read the docs and tinkered a bit but it was a decidedly "meh" experience personally. It seems very similar to ChatGPT Plugins, and that was a flop. I don't really like the fuzzy nature of the architecture, where I never know what server will be invoked. And I have to manually opt-in to each server I want to use? To be unexpectedly useful, it seems like I would h…
We have a software templating tool we use internally to start new projects. I wired an MCP server into it and now I can just ask cursor to start a new project for me, and it'll go through our list of templates, find the most useful one, create a new project, read the documentation for it, and then be ready to building it and adding new features right away.
Re: The Future of MCPs
#86Interesting thoughts regarding MCPs being the future App Store/Platform. I don't know that I agree but I don't necessarily disagree either. Time will certainly tell. To me, MCP feels more like an implementation detail, not something that most people would ever use directly. I would expect that the future would be some app distributed through existing channels, which bundles the MCP client into it, then uses a server-…
Agree that for mainstream use it needs to be and will be hidden from the user entirely. Will be much more like an app store where you can see a catalog of the "LLM Apps" and click to enable the "Gmail" plugin or "Shopping.com" plugin. The MCP protocol makes this easier and lets the servers write it once to appear in multiple clients (with some caveats I'm sure).
They feel quite similar to Alexa skills, packaged in a standard form. The app store analogy allows them to be searched by the end user.
TBH, it's quite surprising (and reassuring) that they have standardised as MCPs so soon. It normally takes a decade of walled gardens and proprietary formats before any open standards emerge.
Re: The Future of MCPs
#87My prediction: there will be no standard protocol, clients will do whatever works for them, and devs will do whatever it takes to be installable on those clients. Just like mobile.
Agreed. MCP is merely the first player.
Re: The Future of MCPs
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, IP addresses have crossed into the popular lexicon in exactly this manner… it’s common enough to hear people say “what’s my “ip?” or “are there any free ips?” or what are the IPs for x/y/z”. I agree that it sounds stupid and incorrect, but that doesn’t necessarily mean using MCP as a metonym for MCP server.
Good point. Other examples are Wi-Fi (e.g. "What's your Wi-Fi?"), DNS (e.g. "You should change your DNS") and USB (e.g. "I only have 2 USBs on my laptop"). So who knows, maybe "MCPs" will catch-on.
I always say "The Google" though, so maybe I'm guilty as well of playing fast and loose with the Engrish Rangurage.
Re: The Future of MCPs
#89The future? MCP is fighting even to have a present.
ah the classic "guy who depends on people viewing webpages doesn't like tech that obviates need to view webpages" response!
Re: The Future of MCPs
#90>>MCP Affiliate Shopping Engines As someone else once said, I want a Grocery Shopping Engine. "Here's my shopping list, taking into consideration delivery times and costs, please buy this for the lowest cost from any combination of supermarkets and deliver by day after tomorrow at the latest." If MCPs gave the LLMs a window into all the major supermarkets home shopping sites that looks like it's a step closer.
Even better you could tell it "please restrict product choices to countries of origin from within NATO."