What Ping Was For

Steve Jobs announced Ping at the 2010 iTunes keynote like it was the second coming of Christ—a new social network built into iTunes where you could follow friends, see what they were buying, and feel like you were part of something exclusive. Except there was no community. There was just iTunes finding another way to make shopping feel like belonging.

The setup was perfect. Every song you added to your profile became a public record of what you’d paid for, which created this bizarre gamification where having taste was the same as having money. But the real kicker was that most people’s libraries were full of pirated tracks. Using Ping honestly meant broadcasting your copyright violations. Apple built a panopticon and dressed it up in minimalist design and called it community.

Jobs understood something that most people don’t want to admit: people don’t actually want products. They want to feel like they’re on the inside of something, like buying your stuff makes them special or different or part of an elite. Ping was that instinct dressed up in social-network language. Follow your friends. Share your taste. Buy more music. Do it all while feeling like you’re participating in culture instead of just consuming it.

Ping died pretty quickly, which was fine by me. Apple never needed it to actually work. They just needed it to exist long enough to sell the feeling that you were part of something exclusive, that your taste meant something, that connecting with people through iTunes was real connection instead of just shopping. And it worked. They’re better at that than anyone else, and they know it. Apple will never stop finding new ways to package and sell that exact feeling.