MCP Doesn't Suck. Your Agent Does. — Jan Čurn, Apify

Why watch

Jan Čurn addresses common criticisms of MCP (Model Context Protocol), arguing that issues like context bloat and token burn stem from naive client implementations rather than the protocol itself. He explains three industry solutions: sub-agents, progressive tool discovery, and Code Mode, and advocates for using CLIs locally while reserving MCP for remote authenticated access. The talk includes a demo of Apify's mcpc, an open-source universal CLI client for MCP with features like grep-based tool discovery, async tasks, and x402 payments.