Yeah, I also admin a few topical groups of 10-40 people with a few friends, and the level of engagement I've gotten is insane. I've never had a long-term group chat with so much content sharing, long-form opinions, etc, and I credit Telegram's UX and desktop clients for most of that engagement.

In many ways, it reminds me of the Web 0.x days on which the HN crowd so frequently reminisces.