This isn't a snide comment, I am legitimately asking. I don't understand the difference between MCP and REST. I know there are differences because I've used it a little. I mean, like, on an existential level. Why isn't it just REST? What parts do MCP give us that REST doesn't?
Anthropic's example of creating an MCP server is just wrapping MCP around a REST weather forecasting service.
Maybe it's just that agentic LLMs have created a lot of interest in being interoperable, whereas efforts like Open API just didn't have any carrot to warrant the stick other than "wouldn't it be nice".
