actually the naming is bad anyway. the initial implementation only was used to check if a host is reachable (routing etc) inside a network. then later other stuff came in like RTT. however a ping on a higher layer is mostly not a "real" ping.
since it tests way more than just reachability. i.e. a http also checks connectivity and when it comes to domains it even includes a dns check.
Ping has confounding factors as well (firewall blocks, DNS, etc). If it works then you know that it's IP reachable, reachable on that TCP port, and that there's a responsive daemon on the other end. If it doesn't, you know that you need to troubleshoot. A device could not ICMP echo request ping, but respond to httping. Neither is perfect.