A file that is edited by more than one person, of which at least one doesn't quite now what he does? It's pretty hard to see what changed from one version to another, and a destroyed formula can go undetected for a while...
And obviously, merge would be nice if multiple people can legitimately edit concurrently.
In spreadsheets (excel) and notebooks (ipython/rstudio), having the data bundled with the code is a feature. It provides reproducibility.
> a destroyed formula can go undetected for a while...
That is a problem in methodology, not with the tools. There are many solutions that do not require abandoning spreadsheets.
For the destroyed formula example, you need tests. Simple example to do that with a checklist: if you are doing a SUM(), require that the employee ticks a box saying "all the number were highlighted when clicking on the SUM formula".
For the out-of-sync version, you need a central repository and another box "I retrieved the latest version from the xx repository, and this version was: ... "
Then require that to be printed and signed (accountability), and you'll see mistake disappear.
Is it any different with code? Developers don’t always stick to the procedures either.
I have ‘unit tests’ in my excel files on the last tab. Eg, the sum of all lines in the Data tab must be the same as the sum of the annual revenues in the dashboard tab.
With a bit of conditional formatting it’s easy to see if a test is failing as well.
I like programming for lots of things, but ask me to do a business case or some one-off analysis and I’d use Excel in most cases.
After they received training when they learn that this step is important and not just a formality, and why it is done, I found that people do observe procedures, especially when they have to sign the checklist they filled themselves.
Human beings observe procedures when they understand it's part of the job and they are held accountable.
Version control is extremely useful in software development because code modification by multiple authors is a primary use-case that happens multiple times throughout the day.
Maybe your experience is different, I haven't seen a use-case where multiple authors are changing excel macros or formulas that often, or even often enough to where this is an issue. In fact I think adding version control would make things very very confusing for most people.
And obviously, merge would be nice if multiple people can legitimately edit concurrently.