I've been hearing a lot about this lately, and here's how I'm starting to conceptualize it:
A traditional API is like going into a restaurant and ordering from a menu. The menu you're handed at your table includes what the restaurant offers—a specific, printed list that you look at and select from. If the restaurant wants to change their offerings, they have to print new menus and distribute them to everyone.
In contrast, the Model Context Protocol is more like creating a protocol that allows you to walk into a restaurant, go into the kitchen, and talk directly to the chef. The chef has access to all the ingredients that the restaurant normally carries, and you can ask them to make something much more specific or customized to your needs.
For example, imagine a restaurant that serves a chicken sandwich and also serves pizza, but doesn't have a chicken Parmesan sandwich on their menu. If you could talk to the chef directly, they could probably make you a chicken Parmesan sandwich because the restaurant already has chicken (for the chicken sandwich) and Parmesan cheese (for their pizzas). It may not be on the traditional printed menu, but the chef could create it for you with existing ingredients.
That's what I think the Model Context Protocol is all about—creating a protocol that allows applications to communicate in much more customizable ways, in contrast to traditional APIs that have set parameters that can be updated and changed over time, but require specific updates that must then be redistributed to everyone using the API.
The apparent value here is enabling applications to be more flexible, intelligent, and aware of their context—more like working with a knowledgeable human than following rigid programmatic interfaces.
I'm still learning about the MCP, this is just my first take. Anyone reading this that has more knowledge on MCP please correct me.