MCP: the standard plug

Tool use existed before anyone named a standard. Each company built its own wiring: this model talks to this calendar in this special way. If you had four tools and three models, you were looking at a lot of custom cables.

MCP is an agreement about the shape of the plug. If your calendar, your files, and your database all offer the same kind of socket, then a program that speaks that shape can plug into any of them. You build the connector once. Other models can use it. MCP is not a product you buy. It is the shape.

That is the whole idea, and it is a smaller idea than the ads. A good plug does not decide whether the toaster is on. It just means you did not have to invent a new plug for every kitchen. What the toaster is allowed to do is a later question.