An office document format is basically source code.
That's why the openness of a graphic format doesn't matter, but clear specifications on how to interpret an office document make an enormous difference.
I would seriously fork money over if MS would ever build Linux version.
I have never lost a document in LibreOffice, Vim/gvim, AbiWord, WordPerfect (long time ago), or OOO.
I lost a ton of documents, sometimes to the cost of many thousands of dollars, in Word. (Disclaimer: haven't used word since like 2010 or so)
People get burned, and thus jaded, by lots of different, sometimes opposing or contradictory, experiences.
As a lawyer, I deal with other people's Word products all day every day. What Word features am I missing out on? I am genuinely curious and not trying to be snarky in any way.
All those pesky macros that would allow your computer to be infected
Not seen Word in a while I guess.
I cringe every time I have to deal with a Word file.
People do say this though. People have personal preferences for the software they have to use all day, and most of the time people don't agree on what that software is. And most of those decisions are driven by the type of work people do. I don't expect a lawyer or a business analyst to use command line interfaces, and I don't think they expect software engineers to code in Word...
And the other people, who were discussing the command line, ignore them.
The point is that you can't really criticize something when your criticism seems to boil down to "I don't understand this".
And who said anything about writing code in Word? What are you on about?!
For the last year Word has actually supported LaTeX for math equations, see https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/murrays/2017/07/30/latex-ma...
But aside from that, Word is great for short and medium length documents, especially ones that need group editing. Put a Word file up on Sharepoint, and now there is user friendly change tracking and commenting.
I've written multiple technical specs in Word, it serves as a great way to collaborate, so long as everyone has bought into the ecosystem.
Well that's the problem isn't it, every potential collaborator who can't or won't buy it will be shunned.
The same argument can be made for any piece of software. People have to buy in, even free software requires taking time to learning it vs whatever existing workflow is in use (if any).
OP points out LaTeX, but for non-technical and non-academic people, this is a non-starter. Word has an extremely low barrier to entry so it makes tons of sense for the general public and K-12 education markets.
There's a reason it's so popular and why LibreOffice and GSuite have emulated the bulk of it's feature set.
It amazes me how little people value other people's work on this site.