Crossing the Model Context Protocol Adoption Chasm

In some corners of the internet, MCP is all anyone’s talking about. But how do we get it from developer Discords to mainstream adoption?

Right now, a small but enthusiastic community of developers is buzzing about the Model Context Protocol — and for good reason. MCP unlocks entirely new ways for LLMs to access structured data, use tools, and interact with the world in real time.

That excitement is starting to spread: major AI players like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have all signaled their intent to support MCP in their products.

But despite that momentum, MCP is still a niche topic. It hasn’t yet made the leap from early adopters to the early majority — the classic Technology Adoption Chasm:

Source: Wikipedia via Craig Chelius

What’s Holding MCP Back?

There are lots of contributing factors, but I’d argue the biggest blockers to MCP adoption boil down to three things:

1. Ease of Setup

2. Trust

3. Monetization

I’ll be diving into each of these in detail in future posts. For now, here’s a preview of where things stand, and what needs to happen for MCP to go mainstream.

1. Ease of Setup

MCP servers can do a lot, but only if you can get them running.

Right now, getting started with MCP is hard.

Setting up an MCP server for personal use typically requires:

• Comfort in the terminal

• Working with Git and GitHub

• Installing package managers like Node and uv

• Formatting JSON config files

• Managing tokens and environment variables

I consider myself at least semi-technical — and I still struggled with my first few setups. Between random dependency errors and mysterious logs, it felt like every step added friction.

This high barrier to entry artificially gates demand. We know MCP is powerful. But most users never get far enough to see it. All of these these details need to be abstracted away from consumers, instead.

The future should look more like this:

• Toggle on an MCP server from a searchable list

• Log in with OAuth

• Grant permissions with one click

New releases like Streamable HTTP and implementations of 3rd party auth support are major steps forward. But we also need MCP client experiences that are designed for users, not just developers.

Whoever builds that user experience first — and does it well — is going to win big.

2. Trust

Right now, discovering MCPs is part exploration, part risk.

The current MCP ecosystem is fast-moving, open, and a little chaotic — which makes it exciting, but also risky.

Today:

• It’s hard to know which servers are safe

• There’s no unified registry or reputation layer

• Security and compliance are an open question

There are so many MCP registries now that it’s become a running joke. The folks at Mastra even created a registry of MCP registries just to poke fun at how fragmented things are:

Anthropic is working on an official registry, which will help with discovery. But we’ll also need:

• Security scanning

• Permission models

• Compliance workflows (that don’t require reading 500 lines of code)

Until then, adoption will remain fragile. It’s way too easy to imagine a single high-profile incident breaking user trust and stalling the ecosystem.

3. Monetization

No one wants to talk about money — but it matters.

Most MCPs today are free and open-source, which is amazing for experimentation.

But monetization is often what drives polish, onboarding, and investment in user experience, all things the ecosystem needs to mature. Monetization also demands more accountability from the creators of MCP servers.

So while I love open-source tools (and free stuff in general) as much as anyone else, I don’t think MCP will cross the chasm without great monetization.

When it becomes easy to:

• Pay for an MCP server

• Monitor your usage

• Upgrade without switching tools

…we’ll see the professionalization of the MCP ecosystem. The tools with the best user experience — from install to billing — will set the standard.

And that will raise the bar for everyone else.

What’s Next?

In upcoming posts, I’ll go deeper into each of these three areas — how we make MCPs:

• Easier to use

• Safer to trust

• More sustainable to build

I’m excited about where we are today: The tools are powerful, but the experience is still rough around the edges. This creates enormous opportunities.

We don’t just need more MCP servers (MCP.so already counts 9,000+!). We need clients, standards, and patterns that make MCP approachable for the rest of us.