TCO is surprisingly commonly supported in the real world. TCO is supported in C++ compilers, JavaScript in Safari, Scala, Clojure in a way, etc.!
For instance:
"All current mainstream [C++] compilers perform tail call optimisation fairly well (and have done for more than a decade), even for mutually recursive calls" [1].
"As of July 22, 2023 Safari is the only browser that supports tail call optimization" of JavaScript [2].
"Since Clojure uses the Java calling conventions, it cannot, and does not, make the same tail call optimization guarantees. Instead, it provides the recur special operator, which does constant-space recursive looping" [3].
"The Scala compiler will automatically optimize any truly tail-recursive method. If you annotate a method that you believe is tail-recursive with the @tailrec annotation, then the compiler will warn you if the method is actually not tail-recursive" [4].
Tail recursive functions on a tail-jump optimized compiler can be as performant as loops. If the compiler was written by someone who has read the Steele papers, it generates the same assembly code in both cases.
I once wrote a Xbox 360 indie game that would crash only in unusual situations due to stack overflow. The game involved essentially gluing together balls, and it would detect if the balls surrounded something. I used recursive DFS to check connectivity of the balls. And most of the time, there would be a couple dozen balls max connected. But you could definitely intentionally connect many many more balls if you wanted to. At a certain point, it would crash with a stack overflow. Changing it to not use recursion (explicit data structures) fixed the crash.