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Comment by CSMastermind | Hacker News Reader

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CSMastermind·

I really wish we'd learn from Web 2.0.

All the mistakes of "hey everything has an API now" that we learned from we're back to repeating.

I feel like that meme from Watchmen with the blue guy sitting on Mars.

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Definitely having that feeling a lot these days watching the cycles repeat. I am tired of earth. These people. Their APIs.

What mistakes are we repeating?

Not understanding that businesses don't want open data or open protocols. Internet businesses want to monopolize information and charge rent for it. Capitalists don't want to commodify software, as that means lower profits and competition. They want to monopolize it. That's the whole game, except for companies selling physical goods over the Internet.

So, is the idea that MCP might benefit from more built-in support for things like paid APIs to incentivize businesses?

I think so. Though the premise of MCP betrays that AI isn't human-level intelligent. If it was there would be no need for a standard interface. It would be able to read API docs, navigate UIs to generate the proper keys, enter in billing info, and use all of that to make API requests by trial and error. That's what humans do.

i dont want to have to find it all those docs though.

its much faster if i hand it a packet

software capitalists don’t want to commodify software. But their complements do: I could totally see Apple pushing for something like this to make the iPhone more valuable and integrated.

Assuming people adopt MCP then:

- JSON over the wire instead of binary

- Schema optional with the spec only defining the envelope

- Lack of inheritent support for code generation

- Poor support for flow-control or multiplexing

- Deadlines/timeouts, compression, per-call metadata, bi-di streaming, TLS, load-balancing hints: none of it standardized

- No inbuilt payment mechanism

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