Not only do they have a profit motive, they have a 'Guaranteed Rate of Return'; All this at the citizen's expense.
As interest rates go up, investor owned utilities increase their rate of return on equity ask, pushing up consumer electricity prices. A baseline of consumer electric demand is inelastic, and required for life.
But yeah, natural monopolies with inelastic demand (power, water, healthcare, shared infrastructure) should be publicly owned, imo.