I agree the big deal is tool calling.

But MCP has at least 2 advantages over cli tools

- Tool calling LLM combined w/ structured output is easier to implement as MCP than CLI for complex interactions IMO.

- It is more natural to hold state between tool calls in an MCP server than with a CLI.

When I read the OT, I initially wondered if I indeed bought into the hype. But then I realized that the small demo I built recently to learn about MCP (https://github.com/cournape/text2synth) would have been more difficult to build as a cli. And I think the demo is representative of neat usages of MCP.