Word is not a special case, it's just people getting used to it and that's all. If tomorrow Microsoft goes belly up and their office suite will be dropped by everybody due to always discovered vulnerabilities Libre Office will pick-up quite nicely. I have yet to find a feature of Word that I can't find its equivalent in Libre.
But Libre is a massive product was well, with a tremendous number of work hours put into it over decades. We're talking about alternatives that are nimble and have fewer features.
