We must be reading different posts & comments because it genuinely seems like he hasn't cared to try very hard. That's definitely his fault.

Yeah, his ex may be making things harder for him, but that's not an excuse.

I know a man that had a kid with an awful woman that uses her kids as tools; she basically has kids, divorces the guy and collects child support from each of them as a full-time job (so far has 4 kids with all different men). Then moved 3 hours away from him. Has him paying an insane amount of child support, makes him cater to her, tries to take all his visitation days, etc.

But he does not give up, he makes sure to drive the 3 hours to get his daughter and the 3 hours back home every other weekend. He fights for his visitation days, he fights to have every other holiday with her, he pays the child support, he video chats her as much as he can, he does everything in his power to see her despite how hard his ex has made things.

He didn't just give up and shrug his shoulders when his ex tried taking his daughter from him. There's no excuses.