What Is MCP (Model Context Protocol)? — The 16-Month Story of How AI Got Its "USB-C" + Practical Guide
MCP (Model Context Protocol) started as a small spec Anthropic quietly dropped on GitHub. Sixteen months later it had hit 97M monthly SDK downloads (+4,750%), 10,000+ public servers, full adoption by OpenAI/Google/Microsoft/AWS, and in December 2025 Anthropic donated ownership to the Linux Foundation — making it shared industry infrastructure, the "USB-C of the AI era." This article covers the 16-month story, the three-element Client/Server/Transport architecture, five MCP servers you can use today (filesystem/github/postgres/slack/fetch), the 30-line Python minimal DIY implementation, why MCP "won," the security and prompt-injection pitfalls, and what comes next — grounded in official sources and hands-on experience.