Teaching Writing with Google Docs

One of the key results of flipping my writing and literature classes has been that my students do much of their writing in-class on computers provided by the college. All of these computers have Microsoft Word on them, but I prefer to use Google Docs/Drive instead. Given that MS Word is the standard word processor for my college and most of the rest of the world, then this preference may require some defence. After all, my colleagues expect all of their papers to be submitted in doc or docx format, and my students are most familiar with Word, so what are the benefits of Google Docs that make it worth swimming against the tide?
Teaching Writing with Google Docs

Teaching Writing with Google Docs