Elements: What did I pay $99 for when I bought a copy of Adobe photoshop elements 2019?

Could you be more specific? What did the box promise was included that you can't find in the installed software? Maybe a PSE Elements expert can help you. I don't use it myself, but everything was there back in PSE 10 when I tried it out to help a friend learn how to use it. To my knowledge, Adobe never requires "in app" purchases to get the features it advertises.

I see you registered your product 8 days ago. Sounds like you got it working. Let us know if you still need help.