Well image if file systems, file formats and version control systems were built from the ground up together. Currently file syncing is harder because we expect

Well image if file systems, file formats and version control systems were built from the ground up together. Currently file syncing is harder because we expect our file server to handle an infinite variety of legacy file formats and the file sever cannot try to know anything about the document structure (whereas a version control system can examine the contents of plain text files). Surely this is why Google docs can manage collaborative working more easily -- because they can control of the whole stack. Better than the OP would be file syncing of arbitrary files between arbitrary systems is hard.