Once a decade the software industry accidentally agrees on something. This time it's MCP — the Model Context Protocol — which went from "interesting spec" to "the port everything ships with" fast enough to give integration consultants whiplash. As a person whose career is professionally gluing systems together, I have feelings.
Why boring protocols win
Before USB, connecting a printer was a religious experience involving serial ports and prayer. Before MCP, connecting an AI to your tools meant writing a bespoke adapter per model per tool — N×M integrations, the same trap enterprise software spent thirty years paying for. The fix is always the same and always unglamorous: agree on the plug. One protocol for "here are my tools, here's how to call them," and suddenly the ecosystem compounds instead of fragmenting.
The USB-C comparison is more honest than it sounds, because USB-C's history includes years of cables that looked identical and did wildly different things. MCP is living that phase now: servers of gloriously variable quality, security models ranging from thoughtful to vibes, and everyone shipping "MCP support" the way monitors once shipped "HD ready." The plug being standard doesn't make the thing behind the plug good. Ask any robot intern what happens when a standardized connector delivers unstandardized nonsense.
The operator's takeaway
Standard ports move the value. When connection is free, the premium shifts to what you connect: clean data, well-described tools, permissions that mean something. Companies with tidy systems get agent-ready almost overnight; companies with chaos get the chaos, faster, through a nicer plug.
It still takes three tries to plug anything in. Some constants transcend protocol versions.