I haven't used the realtime API specifically, but my experiences building a startup around the Drive API leaves me extremely wary about relying on Google/Drive

I haven't used the realtime API specifically, but my experiences building a startup around the Drive API leaves me extremely wary about relying on Google/Drive for anything critical. I currently wrap any call to their api in a try_5_times function since they 500 so frequently, and have to put all drive-related tasks in an exponential-backoff queue even after that for when they go down more seriously. Not what I'd want for core realtime functionality. Would be very curious to hear from others who've used the actual realtime api, however.