I have stand alone lightroom and love it . I know they have stopped supporting it and want you to join the online versions. What I can't seem to get an answer for is this... Is lightroom and photoshop loaded onto your computer and stays there or must you have internet access when working on your pictures. When I travel I like to work on my photos at night however I may be without interest service. What's up?
You only need to be connected to the internet to install and then at least once every 30 days. Here's a link that explains:
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/internet-connection-creative-c...
If you have not been connected for 30 days you'll get a reminder to connect. I have it installed on 2 computers and often times not connected to the internet.
Stan, as Bill said you don't have to be connected to the Internet to use Lightroom CC Classic. Currently there are two Lightroom paths; Lightroom CC Classic and Lightroom CC. I don't have any experience with Lightroom CC but as I understand it pretty much everything is in the cloud including your images. Thus if you use Lightroom CC you must be connected to the Internet but not for Lightroom CC Classic. The Classic version operates the way you have been doing but it is licensed as a subscription which means the once a month they check to see if you are paid up. The regular subscription cost is $9.95/mo for Photoshop, Lightroom CC Classic, Lightroom Mobile, and Lightroom CC. Look around and it is easy to find deals for the first year. Adobe just released a major upgrade with some exiting new features, at least they sound great. Some of the new features are things that I have been hoping for. However, the word is the new release has some bugs so I may wait for the bug fix release.
There are countless Youtubes etc but here are two I like that discuss the new release:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-classic-73/?utm_so...
https://laurashoe.com/2018/04/03/whats-new-in-lightroom-classic-7-3-apri...
My experience: I've used stand alone LR6/Mac for a few years. I did a 'minor' update in November that broke it. It cost me two weeks w/o LR6 & many hours hassling with Adobe support. I started using the demo version of Capture One Pro while awaiting a fix. I've now fully switched to COP11- it's more powerful than LR6 & the results are better. I'm not looking back. There are many online videos showing how to import LR catalogs & use COP11 productively. A bit of a learning curve, but for me, far faster than learning LR.