Can I get an apk anywhere, or is my only option to build it myself? I've tried it but keep running into issues

It's usually not a hacked account. Most of them are free trials from binned credit cards. There are groups out there that will share bins that work for certain services like Tidal/Deezer/Qobuz. Once you get the free trial, you use it for a month and then you start the next one

The lack of karma should help that atleast

From what I understand about Lemmy, the only way to disable signups completely is by defederating. Meaning, you would not be able to view other communities from other Lemmy instances like .world or beehaw.

To get around this, you can switch to application signup like beehaw and just ignore/reject every application but this would also mean that anyone can view your instance as a guest. Like you can go to lemmy.world and view posts and comments without logging in

Atleast, that's what I understand. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not saying that the PWA is horrible, but I think a native app would be better too. Really, the only issue I have with it is the refresh rate. For some reason, the display randomly switches to 60hz, especially when sliding to go to the previous page.

Using the developer options to see the current refresh rate does not represent this, but you can clearly see it. I feel that a native app would be able to force 120hz throughout the app.

The only reason I say this is because, when first tried to install the PWA from Kiwi Browser which was pretty smooth but switched to 60hz here and there. I thought this was because of Kiwi Browser so installed the PWA from Chrome. When I did that, it was fully in 120hz only, completely unusable, so I went back to the Kiwi PWA

Edit: the refresh rate is fine while in Chrome browser, it's only in the installed PWA that the refresh rate goes to shit. Anyone who has a 120hz display knows that even going back to 60hz for a second is jarring.