“I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake…” That’s a quote from a pessimistic analyst in a Bloomberg Op-Ed dated May 20, 2001 — just one day after Apple opened its first retail locations. The arguments against brick-and-mortar retail are sound, for the most part. It’s an expensive proposition to open a retail location that could quickly become nothing more than a showroom for Amazon.com. [...] How to Play Tech’s Retail Dilemma appeared in the Daily Reckoning . Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter .