Hello, yes you do lose contacts if you disable sync while not connected. The internet is 365 days connection ONLY for people that do not travel, if you stay home 365 days or travel to the city next to you or if you are a city person I agree you will be always connected, otherwise you won't have internet always available to you, this why ythe cloud has a limited use and actually doesn't make any sense if not for who doesn't need it if not for fun. The cloud is an old thing I used it 10 years ago, now probably they are trying to cash money back from a project that doesn't work, trying to hook you in with things like import contacts, but forget exporting contacts things. Today the newest thing is called direct connect