Has there has been discussion previously on whether DMing other HN users is a feature that the community wants?

Many here do not like the idea of a DM or even being emailed so I would not get my hopes up.

Based on my memory of past discussions I think the best you can do is hope the person you are trying to reach has put an email alias in their public profile or perhaps ask them in one of their recent comments something like "Off Topic: Looking to contact you regarding [n] thread, my email is in my profile" or something to that affect and use an email alias you know is related to HN so that when you start getting botted/spammed to oblivion you can either create rules or discards or just delete the alias.

The general fix for this is to put whatever your preferred method of contact is into the "about" section of your profile.

You guys have misunderstood in my opinion what he is saying actually.

What he means to say is. He I have a need and I am ready to contact the moderator so that he can allow me to DM a particular guy.

He might be even willing to pay some money depending on his bed to contact.

So if HN could create a paid service where genuine users would pay some amount to the HN and then a paid moderator would tap on the shoulder of the target guy and say hey this dude is interested to DM you and this is his message. If you want to chat back then you can DM him back otherwise peace out!

Yes it's not a puritanic of being a free forum but puritanism has solved not many problems.

Also without payment this system will not work. If u need it u gotta pay

Currently, people who are open to receiving communication from other users are able to list an email address and other channels in their profile.

Anyone on HN can opt-in and does not require administration by the HN moderators. Or additional development effort by HN programmers.

Good luck.