This is insightful. Lack of information, lack of willpower (eg. laziness, addiction) and bad decision-making (for reasons such as cognitive biases, poor reasoni

This is insightful. Lack of information, lack of willpower (eg. laziness, addiction) and bad decision-making (for reasons such as cognitive biases, poor reasoning under uncertainty etc) can be reasons why actions may not be consistent with the real wants. I agree with your larger point. Given this, as a business, one has a choice of focusing only on what you can get people to do (eg. cigarettes, farmville, tabloid journalism, in fact any business that exploits the above reasons) as opposed to focusing on what they truly want - even though we want people to act in a certainway. The first kind are the businesses which are generally considered "evil". Your idea of wants differentiated from actions seems to be quite fruitful. I used to tell people "don't ask your customers, instead, observe their actions". Clearly, something more is required to make a non-evil business. Thanks for teaching me something new. :)