Though the general API lockdown was started long before that, and like you, I’m skeptical that this new wave of open access will last if the promise doesn’t live up to the hype.
The APIs of old were about giving you programmatic access to publicly available information. Public tweets, public Reddit posts, that sort of thing. That's the kind of data AI companies want for training, and you aren't getting it through MCP.
In practice, the distinction is little more than the difference between different HTTP verbs, but I think there is a real difference in what people are intending to enable when creating an MCP server vs. standard APIs.
To this point, GUIs; going forward, AI agents. While the intention rhymes, the meaning of these systems diverge.
the APIs that used to be free and now aren't were just slightly ahead of the game, all these new MCP servers aren't going to be free either.