WINDOWS UPDATE EXCESSIVE DATA USAGE IS INCONSIDERATE!!

But you do not understand why I started this thread in the first place. I started this conversation because Microsoft does not need to replace the entire program when they want to update a program and they just do not care about people that have to pay for data.

The last updates took 45 GB to install which is a huge amount of data. Almost all the updates are 2.5 GB each. It costs me over $6.00 in gas just to go where I can do updates. Some times it is not for weeks.

I for one understand what you are trying to say.  Happily for the world, the people in charge of packaging/distribution of updates are actually very aware of data size: consider that you are one of "N" users, and that team has to ensure that "N" x (total size of patches) data to the world.  This is an incredibly large number, and teams work vigorously to ensure that generally speaking no unneeded data is being sent along.  Slicing and dicing binaries in this way can always be optimized further and the right teams look into that.  But generally speaking: patches are the size they actually need to be.  If you're curious about this further from a technical standpoint, I would look for details of Microsoft's patching system and the manifest-based install system.  It's all a very interesting implementation.  I'm not going to disagree that things cannot be improved further (consider language neutral resources within the patching scheme), but -- people definitely do care about this quite a lot and work to improve things here.  I'm sorry for any pain you are experiencing.

As regards the second paragraph: I'm assuming you're referring to aggregate size here?  Unless it's a substantial OS update, 2.5GB is kind of excessive.  Are you batching together months of updates to be downloaded at one time?  It might be interesting for you to write down the KB numbers and associated download size of the patches you're installing next time (you can view this data set at a more granular level in the desktop control panel's version of Windows Update) so that you can supply that specific data and others can compare their experience.

Generally speaking: yes, this is a complicated and hard problem, but it's one that the right people care quite a lot about and have worked constantly to improve for a long while now.  <3

Here is a print screen of a portion of what happened today when I went to town. It took 10 or 15 minutes to do it all.

Here is a print screen of a portion of what happened today when I went to town. It took 10 or 15 minutes to do it all.

I received those today as well (haven't used my Windows 8.1 system for awhile) and mine totaled for Windows 8.1, only   75.87 MB

I also received 580 MB of updates for Office 2013

These were all published on June 10, 2014  (second Tuesday of the month as usual)

Did you see the numbers for my updates? I just a full update on 05/28/2014. It is like this every time.

Did you see the numbers for my updates? I just a full update on 05/28/2014. It is like this every time.

Which numbers?  Are you referring to the KB numbers attached to each update?

Those are Knowledge Base (KB) numbers that refer to the information defining the update.

e.g. KB2965699. 

I have the same updates as you have listed.  I have indicated the total size as well.

 Updates will normally be published  once per month on the second Tuesday.