I would get chat messages from people on occasion, sometimes nice, sometimes nasty, sometimes spam. Probably mostly nasty and spam, but I did get the occasional nice message or legitimate question.
Yes, there's a group chat I share with others with a common interest and we've all become supportive friends. I also have a mod chat with my fellow mods because it's way easier than using the native mod functions on reddit. The mod chat is actually pretty bad and harder to get to, plus when notifications work (they're not working correctly now for chat), it was also easier.
I also had some friendships chats with people one on one that I've gotten to know from my years on reddit. All gone. The only thing left is the new group chat and our mod chat because it was most recent. It's honestly a bummer.