CHARLOTTE, NC — Cost conscious shippers have driven a change in a long-time product designed to protect goods during transit, but kids – and kids at heart – are getting their bubbles burst.

According to multiple news reports, Bubble Wrap, which has been around more than half a century, is getting an update by one maker, Sealed Air.

It will soon offer what it calls iBubble Wrap, sold flat and airless, and later inflated by companies that use it for shipping material.

But rather than having the ubiquitous, individual round bubbles, that can be popped after opening a package, the air bubbles in iBubble Wrap will be filled in columns, each being connected to the other, with the air simply shifting into other columns if you try and squeeze it.

In other words no “pops” that have delighted some, but driven others up the wall.

The reason for the change?

A truck hauling iBubble Wrap can haul 47 times the amount of traditional bubble wrap because it takes up less space.

Sealed Air said it will continue to make traditional bubble wrap, along with other companies, but it’s likely to become far less common.

Even if Bubble Wrap does go by the way of the dodo bird, there will be videos of raccoons popping Bubble Wrap (see below) and even a guy who created what is arguably one of the greatest ways to pop Bubble Wrap in mass quantities by using a bicycle.