The article also doesn't contemplate the "skill distribution problem" which will be addressed by skills-over-mcp.

With the plain ol' API solution, you still need some way for agents to fetch the instructions provided by the service. Of course there are answers for this, but they are not standardized.

With MCP, all you have to do is provide the harness with a single URL and all context can be bootstrapped the same way for every service.

In many companies, the process for launching/updating a hosted service like remote MCP is very different than distributing compiled or open source client code.

And it's easy for the service to do that by hosting a remote MCP server.

That niche environment is all SaaS-to-SaaS integrations. The client doesn't want to have users struggling to get every integration working on their platform. The service providers don't want to have to support non-standarized behavior by every client.

Well now the phones actually take a video over a period of time so you can pick the best shot.

But a better analogy is how we hired a guy to take photos of us in front of the Eiffel tower on Christmas day. He came with a DSLR, directed the different poses, then sent us the photos later that day. Whole thing took less than 20 minutes.

It's the fact that the floor has been lowered so substantially.

Of course every modernized, automated craft ends up having its hobbyist revival. Whether it's analog photography, hand tool woodworking, knitting, assembly programming, or whatever. And that's lovely, but it doesn't mean much for economic trends.

And like, that's transformed human interaction? I like following my friends' stories and receiving quotidian snaps of my nephews.

That's the point of the analogy, not that people are passing it off "as if it's art."

Those are the equivalent of bad photos. The point is that you can easily look at it and just try again.

The real question is who can sell their photos and for how much profit. Even muzak has its market of satisfied customers.

Of course "manual" programming can always be a hobby that provides emotional gratification, but that's not what dominates the economy.

> The real question is who can sell their photos and for how much profit

Is that so ?

Betel nut chewing is still found lots of places in South and Southeast Asia.

Not to that extent: it's against regulations in most cities from Singapore (obviously) to Saigon, and it's considered 'old people thing' in general. In Papua you see people with red teeth all the time, blood like stains on sidewalks accompanied by tiny zipper bags, which are very intriguing when you're out of context. I saw a mother giving betel to her 10 yo daughter on a boat ride - It is a bit calming, so...

The streets are littered with beetlenut in Shenzhen, especially Huaqiangbei. Also Chunking Mansion, HK (take the stairs). Would not recommend if you have elevated blood pressure.

It is very pervasive in certain parts of India. Google Pan Masala India.

If by "genetic modification" you mean "random genetic mutation" formally known as stenospermocarpy.

Seedless grapes existed in the Mediterranean centuries ago. The now-popular Thompson seedless was brought from the Ottoman empire in 1872.

Similar story with bananas and the parthenocarpy mutation. Then you layer selective breeding on top of that to create complete sterility due to triploidy.

Others like the babaco papaya are just simple sterile interspecific hybrids.

So nature actually does make seedless fruit by accident quite often. It's just that you need humans to come along and clonally propagate them.