My gripe with USB C isn't really on the nature, but on the UX and modality of capability discovery.
If I am looking at a device/cable, with my eyes, in the physical world, and ask the question "What does this support?", there's no way to tell.
I have to consult documentation and specifications, which may not exist anymore.
So in the case of standards like MCP, I think it's important to come up with answers to discovery questions, lest we all just accept that nothing can be done and the clusterfuck in +10 years was inevitable.
A good analogy might be imagining how the web would have evolved if we'd had TCP but no HTTP.
100% agree but with private enterprise this is a problem that can never be solved; everyone wants their lock-in and slice of the cake.
I would say for all the technology we have in 2025, this has certainly been one of the core issues for decades & decades. Nothing talks to each other properly, nothing works with another thing properly. Immense effort has to be expended for each thing to talk to or work with the other thing.
I got a Macbook Air for light dev as a personal laptop. It can't access Android filesystem with a phone plugged in. Windows can do it. I know Apple's corporate reasoning, but just an example of purposeful incompatibility.
As you say, all these companies use standards like TCP/HTTP/Wifi/Bluetooth/USB/etc and they would be nowhere without them - but literally every chance they get they try to shaft us on it. Perhaps AI will assist in the future - tell it you want x to work with y and the model will hack on it until the fucking thing works.
If I am looking at a device/cable, with my eyes, in the physical world, and ask the question "What does this support?", there's no way to tell.
I have to consult documentation and specifications, which may not exist anymore.
So in the case of standards like MCP, I think it's important to come up with answers to discovery questions, lest we all just accept that nothing can be done and the clusterfuck in +10 years was inevitable.
A good analogy might be imagining how the web would have evolved if we'd had TCP but no HTTP.