The farce of paying for homeowner generation is something activists (whom I love) came up with, not the utility. It's clearly operating directly against the interests of the group, in as much as it is generally paid in 10X what the 'extra' electricity is worth. So, agreed. it should be some weak wholesale rate if it's anything.
It's operating against the profit margin of the for-profit utility company. It's operating for the interests of the general public as a group, as distributed residential solar has significant societal benefits for resiliency after natural disasters, lower pollution, etc.
The American energy grid is a mess of bad incentives and bad actors, where we get for-profit companies with monopoly control and often their incentives are to lobby politicians for rules and regulations which increase their profits to the detriment of everyone else.