I think Google Groups are indeed pretty good for this! In addition to the benefits you listed, another good thing is that everyone has an email address, which can’t be said of basically any other service. One downside is that Google Groups can be a bit hard/confusing/intimidating to join, although that’s something the group owner has control over.
I’ve also seen a lot of communities being organized on Discord recently, and pingable Discord roles are another fairly good way to deal with this — e.g. there’ll be a @book-club role and a @social-meetup role. (I’m not really sure how the events feature works on Discord.)
I think Google Groups are indeed pretty good for this! In addition to the benefits you listed, another good thing is that everyone has an email address, which can’t be said of basically any other service. One downside is that Google Groups can be a bit hard/confusing/intimidating to join, although that’s something the group owner has control over.
I’ve also seen a lot of communities being organized on Discord recently, and pingable Discord roles are another fairly good way to deal with this — e.g. there’ll be a @book-club role and a @social-meetup role. (I’m not really sure how the events feature works on Discord.)