Hi,
I am new to digital photography. I recently purchased a Fuji X-T20 and the 18-55 and 55-200. I come from the Deardorff 5x7 zone system darkroom days. I am a little daunted by the software offerings. I don't think I need any of the photo cataloging features. What I want is flexibility to 'improve' the image. So, do I go with Lightroom or Capture One?
I can fully understand your viewpoint. Personally, I am quite familiar with computers and using software for various tasks. However, having always worked with Photoshop (and its developing module CameraRAW), I was quite unsure about Lghtroom toon when time came to move to it for reasons having to do with Photoshop being moved by Adobe to subscription status (I won't go into details which are irrelevant for now).
The cataloging part, of which so many people seemed so full, was also daunting, as I, just like you, didn't think I needed it, being otherwise quite well organized.
However, you can absolutely use Lightroom only to develop your RAWs, without having to use any of its cataloging features. Personally, the move to Lightroom was quite easy, once you understand where are the main buttons that you need initially ("Library", "Develop", "Import", etc. There aren't more than a couple) and when to click on them, because for the rest (the processing of the RAWs itself), Lightroom is quite easy and intuitive to use —and, which was important from my viewpoint, looks and works very much like CameraRAW).
I recently looked at another software called Affinity Photo, which also seems quite easy to use, but their database of lenses is still much too small, and therefore I stuck with Lightroom and Photoshop.
I never do any cataloging with Lightroom, and I'm just fine.