Judea Pearl & Dana Mackenzie, in their new book The Book of Why (p.190ff), explain the paradox in a way I hadn't seen before.
Pearl imagines changing the rules to "Let's Fake a Deal," where "Monty opens one of the two doors you didn't choose, but his choice is completely at random." Of course he could open the door containing the car/prize, ruining the game. But his point is that, with this random choice, there is no longer any advantage to switching. If Monty opens a door containing a goat, there is a $1$-in-$2$ probability of winning either by sticking or by switching.
That Monty's door-opening is not random, but rather constrained by Monty's need to avoid revealing the car, now makes it more clear that significant information is conveyed by his goat door-opening.
He assumeassumes you open Door $1$, and then:
[![Snippet][1]][1]
Let's **Make** a Deal, vs. Let's **Fake** a Deal.