But you can no longer trust Telegram that things you had in your chat will still be there tomorrow. This feature feels like someone has hacked into your device and deleted files they didn't like.

"Your" chat consists of other people's messages too and they own those. You can also delete your messages on Discord or Slack – it's quite normal as a feature.

Firstly, I'm talking about PMs, not group chats. Group chats have different requirements because they have to be moderated.

Of course, I have nothing against being able to delete your own messages for both. A time limit within which you can do that is nice but I can live without one. But Telegram lets you delete every message in any PM conversation, including incoming ones, for both people. Or even the entire conversation, and make it disappear from the other person's list without a trace.