I find the interface, speed and functionality of C1 better than LR's. I've switched to it completely and never looked back, I can recommend it unreservedly.
Capture One has a perpetual license, you can try it for free and before checkout their price shows the yearly commitment.
I'm a huge fan of C1's interface, it feels so intuitive and everything's just where I expect it to be.
Another nice thing about Capture One is the speed.
Especially if you do tethered shooting. Many photographers switeched to it for that reason (among the others).
It looks like they want to charge me the same as Lightroom but without the seamless cloud storage.
Seamless is a weird word to use in the context of the posted article.
Because it is. I only upload on the desktop and I dump a card full of RAWs and then can deal with them as if it's nothing.