Longtime lurker... But I have to chime in. The anti-Adobe posts are crazy. To repeat what a few people keep trying to say, Lightroom IS available as a standalone one-time purchase with identical features to CC. It's also on sale all the time for a reasonable price.
If Adobe one day decided to make Lightroom subscription only, this would NOT affect your life at all as you bought Lightroom 5, still own Lightroom 5, and will always own Lightroom 5. Will Lightroom 5 or a stand-alone purchase of 6 (when it happens) always work on new a new OS? Nobody knows, but it will surely be more up to date than Aperture that has already been officially abandoned.
Apple has proven that you can never trust new versions to continue to even be developed whatsoever, but as long as Adobe is selling standalone and current versions of Lightroom, what is the issue? Apple isn't remotely breaking the version of Aperture you own now and Adobe won't be able to do that to the version of Lightroom you can buy in a box, on Amazon now either. Your photos are not ever being held hostage by anyone. Such weird arguments. Software will always work for what you purchased it for, on the system you purchased it for. Period. You are far more likely to upgrade computers before an Adobe program breaks due to OS incompatibility.
As far as CC is concerned, I don't think those that are complaining are the market. When you've plunked down $2500 to buy Adobe software outright in the past and upgrade every year, you understand that it's VERY reasonably priced. I've built 2 careers on the backs of their software, so I definitely understand the value. If you don't need 8 of their programs in your line of work and just want to edit family photos, of course the standalone Lightroom purchase is the option you should undoubtedly go with.
After years of having to do work with clients that are always on different versions, CC finally puts everyone on an even playing field. CC also allows Adobe to not artificially hold back major new features for the next release, letting us have them immediately. It's actually quite refreshing to see a product getting continually added functionality at all times. It is as if the changes coming in iOS8 had trickled into our phones monthly over the last year. We could have had custom keyboards in a 7. update, but software companies need to have exciting version launches, something Adobe has done away with in CC. It also helps with the beta testing, as making the big changes incrementally allows them to really pinpoint what is causing a bug. Adding 100 major features all at once is far harder to diagnose.
All of that being said, Apple should really sell off Aperture, Logic, Final Cut, etc to a hungrier software company that isn't in the consumer/hardware business. Adobe DOES need competition (for innovation sake) and Apple is showing that they're no longer interested in being that. Adobe's patent portfolio must be pretty scary and proof that our patent system sucks. In graphics and design, there's really nowhere else to go. But people don't just pay the money because they have to, but because they make enough money using the software to justify it. Otherwise, they're in the wrong business.