Is MCP Still Important?
Hintway · reddit · 2026-07-13
The post discusses whether MCP is still necessary when AI agents can directly scrape web pages or Swagger/OpenAPI docs.
The author believes MCP originally aimed to standardize AI access to external tools and APIs. However, some agents can now accomplish tasks by "directly reading docs," bypassing dedicated MCP servers.
Key trade-offs include:
- Advantages of MCP support: Better reliability, authentication handling, token consumption control, and cross-invocation state management.
- Advantages of direct scraping: Flexible enough for REST APIs with comprehensive docs, saving a layer of integration costs.
- Limitation scenarios: Prone to failure when scraping APIs with poor docs, complex permissions, or state requirements.
Ultimately, the author asks whether MCP will remain a long-term standard or merely serve as a transitional solution until agents become smart enough.
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