[dragonwriter]

> I as a third party can verify whether someone has a valid HN membership and provide them perks based on their membership. That is the problem a distributed ledger solves.

It's the problem delegated auth (OAuth, etc.) already solved.

> You need some way to pay for membership without a middleman. This is solved by cryptocurrency part of the blockchain these nfts are stored on.

But... it's not, because a system that relies on a distributed network of middlemen isn't “without a middleman”.

> Memberships are also more complicated than a list of email addresses. They can be transferred, expired, and change depending on the action of the user. For example, some provider want their memberships to be reduced to half when transferred.

Smart contracts just add complication; this is trivially solved internally in centralized membership systems.